Denis Opudo
The Global Startup Award operates in Europe, Africa, and Asia among other regions. The program provides continuous networking among the continents of the world. In Europe, the initiative is running in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark. In the Eastern and Central Europe includes Bulgaria, Poland, and Croatia. Other countries are Hungary, Austria, Romania, and Chechia.
South East Asia comprises of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Singapore, and Philippine. SAARC members constitute Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, and India. Southern Africa joined the movement this year forming the youngest region. Besides networking, the program also provides mentorship to entrepreneurs in the tech ecosystem. South African Startup Award exposes the African startups to the global market. Yet, it does not provide financial rewards. The initiative works with the help of international media, conferencing tickets among others. Global Startup Award does not change the regional winners, nominees, data or business ideas.
According to Albert Alexander, winning at national and regional levels provide business opportunities. The CEO at Glueck Technologies (Malaysia) in 2016 won the “Best Deep Tech/AI/Big Data Startup”. This regional category event took place during the Asean Rice Bowl Startup Awards.
Anette Nørgaard noted that Nordic Startup Award allows startups to network. The strategy enhances startups’ visibility and acquisition of customers and investors. The CEO at Karolina Fund (Iceland), Ingi Rafn emphasized the startups’ opportunities. He won the “Best Social Tech Startup” in 2016 during the Nordic Startup Awards. Andrej Kiska narrated that he managed to open Credo’s Silicon Valley office using awards. The Partner at Credo Ventures (Slovakia) added that the award enabled him to outdo US investors. He also won the “Investor of the Year” award in 2016.
Global Startup Awards is a worldwide competition attracting over 45 countries. The mission of this event is to celebrate, connect and support key tech ecosystem players. The other opportunities are commercial exchange, networking, investment platforms and global partnership.
Southern Africa Startup Awards opens the nomination process for all SADC members. Counties list, Zambia, South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, DRC, Lesotho, and Mozambique. Other members are Seychelles, Namibia, Madagascar, Angola, Mauritius, and Swaziland. Startup Superheroes nominations normally attracts many tech players. The use of internet allows participants to vote a country of interest.
