3-Day Innovation Summit Sparks Investor Interest and Furthers Conversation Surrounding African and African Diaspora Innovation
Washington, DC Nov. 21, 2016- tiphub Africa hosted its second annual Diaspora Demo Summit Nov 10-12 at various locations across Washington, DC. Aimed at highlighted the best in innovation and social impact across the African Diaspora the event rallied 12 promising startups from 8 different countries for a startup showcase. Each of the startups participated in an 8-week accelerator designed to offer mentorship, guidance, expertise and advisory support as well as an in-person residency in Washington, DC at I/O Spaces. The accelerator was conducted in affiliation with sponsors and partners including South African Airways, AppsTech, Morgan Lewis, Sendgrid, FB Start, Amazon AWS, Stripe Atlas, and Afrinection.
The summit kicked off at the World Bank with a series of workshops facilitated by organizational partners InfoDev, DiGame, Accion, Capria VC, IdEA and Village Capital. Sessions covered topics ranging from “Advancing Innovation in Products, Processes, and Business Models for Startups in Developing Markets” to “Social Impact at Scale” to a diverse audience of founders, aspiring entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders and agency affiliates.
The workshops were followed by the startup showcase where each of the accelerator participants pitched their companies. The showcase featured a panel with Addis Ideas’ Mita Yilma and Tia Ayele, Leadership and STEM Operational Consultant Takeyah Young, Media Specialist & Tech Inclusion Advocate Patricia Edwards and moderator Anie Akpe, Founder of IBOM LLC as well as a keynote from Mr. Patrick Munis, President and CEO of NewWave Telecom and Technologies who surprised the crowd by announcing a virtual and augmented reality focused Code-a-thon in partnership with tiphub, scheduled for late January.
Diaspora Demo closed with a Founders Forum with a fireside chat from HopStop.com Founder Chinedu Echeruo who provided attendees with a wealth of information on growing and scaling their business as well as an insiders’ glimpse of his new venture GigaMeet.
Since the close of Diaspora Demo 7 of the 12 featured companies received investment inquires as a result of their pitches. Several companies have also seen individual success including ScholarX, a platform to help students locate scholarships, who received funding from LDI Africa, Dechets a l’Or, a Guinea-based recycling startup, who won 10,000 in the Wharton Africa Business Forum Venture Competition and DC-based streaming service KweliTV not only won the #SheDemos pitch competition but a full year of office space from sponsor and community partner I/O Spaces. 5 of the participating Diaspora Demo companies will also be selected to go on an innovation and investor tour of Silicon Valley.
With the expansion of the Diaspora Demo Summit Tiphub Africa, the investment manager for startups in Africa and the African Diaspora, continues its commitment to supporting the next wave of African and African Diaspora focused startups. Post Demo Day tiphub plans to continue its empowerment of entrepreneurs both domestically and abroad with initiatives like the NewWave Code-a-thon partnership and recurring bi-monthly founders forums.
To learn more about tiphub or tiphub’s Diaspora Demo, please visit tiphub.org and DiasporaDemo.com respectively.