More than 2,500 startups from around the world applied, but only 27 startups finalists with a mission to create positive change will get to pitch for a share of $1.000.000 in funding. Over the next five weeks you have the chance to contribute and vote for your favorite startup that will bring a positive impact in the world.
The Venture empowers extraordinary startups to create a positive change and has a mission to inspire entrepreneurial thinkers to transform the world. The competition started in august 2015 with application forms and after the startups were selected, they had the chance to learn, grow and accelerate their businesses. Participants headed to The Venture’s Accelerator Week for a week of motivation, inspiration and mentorship from some of the world’s foremost businesses and entrepreneurial minds. Now their job is to impress and inspire the public.
Over the course of five weeks, from Monday 9th May to the 13th June, you can vote for your favorite Venture finalist. Every week public’s vote will determine who won a share of the first $250.000 in funding. The remaining $750,000 in funding will be awarded at The Venture Final in July in New York City, after a high-stakes pitch in front of The Venture judges.
Now, The Venture hosts 27 bright minds from 27 countries, including Dominican Republic, Brazil, Nigeria, Angola, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and many others. All of them bring inspiring ideas to change the world in different field and domains.
Out of the 27 finalists, 5 come from countries in the CEE regoin – Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Romania and Estonia.
Sergey Petrov, from Bulgaria, is bringing breakthrough innovation to the global beekeeping industry. Bee Smart Technologies created a device that increases honeybee health, decreases operating costs for beekeepers and reduces honeybee mortality. With Bee Smart Technologies solution, beekeepers have access to knowledge about their colonies they never had before. This helps them cut down operating costs whilst preventing losses of bees.
Coolar, a company founded by Julia Römer, from Germany, provides reliable cooling in regions without electricity supply. Therefore vaccination campaigns, modern healthcare, and sufficient food supplies, can be provided to the developing world. Coolar’s innovative cooling system enables doctors to preserve lifesaving medicine such as vaccines in a reliable and eco-friendly way, by providing close to carbon-neutral refrigerators that work without electricity. The system uses warm water that is easy to generate through solar energy and easy to store in a water tank.
Tudor Cobalaș, a participant from Romania is the Co-Founder of SafeDrive. The mobile app that rewards drivers for not texting while driving. Drivers earn points that can be converted into discount vouchers or special offers from partner companies. It is a solution for large organisations with car fleets, rewarding employees who drive responsibly. By opening the app just before driving, SafeDrive automatically starts giving their users points based on speed, time spent in traffic and distance travelled. By rewarding drivers points for not texting, SafeDrive incentivises responsible driving which ultimately creates safer roads.
Poland is represented by Agnieszka Osytek, Co–Founder & Global Manager at Migam. Migam, that we already wrote about, eliminates communication barriers between the deaf and those that can hear. Migam created a remote service that provides a live video translation, via a web browser and mobile app, between a deaf person and a translator. Thanks to Migam, deaf people can communicate, meaning they are able to do things that many of us take for granted, such as pay bills. They offer the service to public institutions and businesses that face individual customers to support their communications with deaf people. Thanks to this B2B2C business model, the service is free for deaf users.
Sentab, with Tarmo Pihl, the Founder & CEO from Estonia, is an easy-to-use social network that creates technology to connect the elderly with their family and friends. By turning a regular television set into an interactive device that can be used to make voice and video calls to other enabled televisions, computers or smartphones, families can share and connect with older relatives through their platform.
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These are only some of the ideas, but you can check other ones here. You can vote for your favorite contestants right here.
