Kenyan startup Weza Tele, of the MyOrder Enterprise, won the IBM SmartCamp competition at the Tech4Africa conference for its SMS ordering service.
HumanIPO reported yesterday four startups – Weza Tele, Bespoke Systems, Health E-net and Ma3route – had taken part in a heated six minute presentation competition at the conference for the chance to partner with IBM Global Entrepreneur.
According to the judges Weza Tele was chosen for being the most innovative and scalable of the four competing startups, while it also had a solid team that was already working.
The win gives the startup the chance to attend the SmartCamp to be held on October 9-10 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and also the regional competition for IBM’s Global Entrepreneur Programme in Brazil.
The startups went through mentorship programmes designed to help them interact with local ecosystems and get feedback. Mentors were investors, successful business people and people from academia.
The four startups enjoy access to IBM software to develop solutions and a relationship with IBM, which provides assistance in market solutions and technical aspects.
The programme was held in Africa for the first time last year, with mentorship being held in East Africa this year. The IBM Global Entrepreneur program has been running since 2010
Mo-De (Mobile Decisioning) won last year’s SmartCamp. The startup provides a solution that enables prepaid mobile users to access airtime on credit and recovers the airtime from subsequent top ups. The firm has also developed a solution that enables prepaid airtime users to contribute a portion of their airtime top up towards improving their community through their churches.
