TNW’s Startup World introduced in Africa, $332,000 worth of prizes up for grabs

The Startup World is an initiative of The Next Web, I/O Ventures, Racksapce, Echo, Tropo, SeedCamp, Alcatel Lucent and Startup Africa to promote startups, entrepreneurship and technology through a global challenge that seeks to identify the globe’s most innovative startups.

The African version of the competition will be held in “four cities on different dates in different countries.” The first session will be held on September 5 in Cape Town, South Africa. Kenya’s capital Nairobi will hold the second session on September 7. While Kigali Rwanda and Dar es Salaam Tanzania will host the third and the fourth session on September 12 and 14 in that order.

The regional winners, aside from a trip to the Silicon Valley, California in the United States for a final grand competition, will each receive $37,000 in cash with Racksapce hosting for six months valued at US$ 3000, and 1 million Echo real-time streams valued at US$ 7000.

The Grand Finale winner will be crowned as StartupWorld’s Global Winner with a 3-month incubation period worth $30,000 sponsored by i/o Ventures. Other trophies include a 1-year of hosting worth up to $24,000 sponsored by Rackspace, 5-million real-time streams per month for 1 year worth $30,000 sponsored by Echo and International media coverage of their startup on The Next Web’s global audience of nearly 8 million.

The Startup World However has entry limitations. To apply, a startup ought to have been launched within two years, must be profit-oriented and its product or service should be demonstrable before a live and video audience. All the startups have to use English in the pitching and application documents.

Startups with any external funding will receive funding of up to $500,000. Startup World pitch competitions are currently held in 36 cities across the globe.