The Google sponsored ‘Ebda2 with Google’ competition is finally entering its homestretch after an eight-month four-step competition with the winner set to win US$200,000 grand prize on May 3, 2012, during the contest’s final leg.
Through the ‘Ebda2 with Google,’ phonetic spelling for Arabic word ‘start,’ Google hopes to find and award Egypt’s most talented entrepreneurs. The grand prize will serve as seed capital “to bring winning business ideas to the market.
“We are very excited about the outcome of this competition and we have very high hopes for all the competitors. The final winners will be the recipient of the $200,000 grand prize a few months later after the final event,” Fakharany said.
The competition that attracted over 4,000 tech startups saw entrepreneurs apply to participate in the competition through the competition’s website during the first stage. Applicants completed a form explaining their idea, how far they have developed it, as well as information about themselves and their colleagues. Judges evaluated all of the applications submitted and selected the 200 brightest and most promising of them to participate in the competition.
The participants at the second stage submitted a document outlining their business concept through the competition’s site. They were afterwards invited to give a 5-minute preliminary pitch.
The third stage comprised the competitions semi-finals and saw only 50 contestants present their working models in an individual booth or exhibition, submit business summary document and pitch the business to a panel of Judges that were all incorporated into the contestants’ score.
20 finalists were afterwards selected based on the score.
The competition is now in its final leg where judges will deliver a decision on the winner based on submitted Business plan documents, product Demo and Final pitch.
While only one winner will carry the day, Google expects other contestants to turn their ideas into a viable business in Egypt, a country whose unemployment rate is reported to be on the rise.
