Semifinalists for the VentureOut Internalization Challenge, have been announced. The mobile application internationalization contest challenge attracted 113 submissions from 19 countries, East Africa having 20 submissions – 13 from Kenya, 5 from Tanzania and 2 from Uganda. BrainShare, a Ugandan entry has made it to the semi finals following it’s success at the PivotEast 2013 challenge
Their submissions have been judged by business and mobile app experts and the top 24 semifinalists have been announced.
The 24 semifinalists will receive personalized mentorship, organized by each of the eight local technology community partners. Using feedback from the VentureOut judges and their mentors they will upgrade their applications by September 24 for round two of judging. The top 12 finalists will be announced on October 2, and subsequently paired with internationally-based mentors with whom they’ll meet during the month of October, leading up to the finalists’ event.
The finalists will be preparing for the Dragon’s Den, a pitching exposition to compete for $10,000 in seed funding thatwill be held in Moldova this October 30-November 1, 2013. Thanks to a great partnership with TechCrunch, one selected VentureOut entrepreneur will also be attending TechCrunch’s DisruptEurope event in Berlin this October 28 and 29, 2013. Blackberry is also contributing to the prizes available for the top 12.
The African Teams in the Semi Finals of VentureOut Challenge
| BrainShare enables students to easily access eBooks, notes and past papers to help them study and prepare for exams. | Charles Muhindo | Uganda |
| GoMetro is a transit app for emerging markets that combines trains, buses, rapid transit and taxis into one app using multiple data sources. | Alicia Ernstzen | South Africa |
| Joois is a social gaming network for mobile phones. | WaliaulaMakokha | Kenya |
| Ma3Route is a mobile/web/SMS platform that crowd-sources transport data and provides users with updates on traffic, directions and driving reports. | Laban Okune | Kenya |
| Marodi.tv is a replay TV platform for mobile and web playing TV programs from channels in Senegal and Cameroon. | Jimmy KUMAKO | Senegal |
| Nearest Locator helps you easily find nearest places like: ATMs, banks, eateries, hospitals, pharmacies and more. | Ayoola ajebeku | Nigeria |
| Prowork empowers businesses by bringing project management and collaboration together on one platform. | Francis Onwumere | Nigeria |
| RubiQube recommends locally developed mobile apps to their target market through a location-based app recommendation system. | Mahmood Oyewo | Nigeria |
| Waabeh is Africa’s audio market place helping with discovery and distribution of audio content from the continent. | King’ori Maina | Kenya |
| XCommodity is an online commodities market and auction house to enhance the movement of commodities across continents. | Sefik Bagdadioglu | Tanzania |
