The world is becoming a global village, and especially to tech entrepreneurs. The Next Web-powered initiative the Startup World is accepting applications from tech startups, worldwide.
This invitation has been extended to various African countries which makes it one of its kind in the region. Most tech competitions worldwide have been built around giants like Google.
Startup World has targeted 36 cities to engage in the competition. This includes countries from African including Nairobi, Dar-es-Salam, Kigali, Cape Town, and Lagos.
The competition is sponsored by one of the biggest names in tech world such as TheNextWeb (TNW), Startup Labs, Rackspace, I/O ventures, SeedCamp among many others.
Finalists for the Startup World will benefit from invaluable mentorship program by Silicon valley’s finest. The finalists will also be invited to Silicon Valley for the award ceremony.
The overall winner will have loads of prizes. Three-month incubation period by i/o Ventures worth US$30,000, a year of free hosting provided by Rackspace worth US$24,000, 5 million real-time streams per month for 1 year worth$30,000 and good media coverage will be up for grabs.
Regional winners in the 36 cities will also receive prizes and goods — subsidized flight to the Startup World Grand Final in San Francisco to battle it out in front of a panel of expert judges and venture capitalists, Tours of the hottest startups and V/C firms in Silicon Valley, 6 months of hosting worth up to $3000 by Rackspace, free real-time streams and international media coverage.
The criteria for application are, startups must have been launched in the last 2 years and received funding of less than US$500,000. The projects also need to have a strong profit projection.
The organisers will announce the pitching heats for all the regions on their blog. Finalists for the South American round have been announced.
