10 startups chosen for the Inaugural Qualcomm Make in Africa Mentorship Program

Qualcomm Applied sciences, Inc. has  chosen 10 startups to take part within the inaugural Qualcomm Make in Africa startup mentorship program, as a part of the Qualcomm Africa Innovation Platform introduced in December 2022.

The startups that are primarily based in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and Rwanda are growing progressive merchandise in clear vitality, agricultural know-how, computing for training, geospatial predictive evaluation, medical applied sciences, and improvements using electrical autos. A number of startups additionally characteristic girls in distinguished management roles.

“I’d wish to applaud and congratulate these 10 startups for his or her progressive options,” stated Sudeepto Roy, Vice President, Engineering, Qualcomm Integrated. “I’m past excited to listen to about their respective downside domains and progressive options. They’ve utilized their skills and ingenuity to handle Africa’s present-day wants in areas of dependable entry to wash vitality, precision agriculture to preserve water and different assets, variations of electrical transportation for a lot of last-mile wants, utilizing AI and different improvements for accelerating illness pathology and therapy, and addressing vitality environment friendly, reasonably priced computing for the training market. Over the subsequent few months, we’ll mentor them in areas of enterprise improvement, know-how purposes and mental property legislation. We’re honored to have the ability to take part of their entrepreneurial journey and their future affect in Africa.”

Theses startups have been chosen from a pool of 550+ candidates from 34 African international locations by a world jury primarily based on quite a lot of {qualifications} together with technical capabilities, enterprise elements, and potential for innovation and mental property era.

The Qualcomm Make In Africa startups will obtain equity-free mentorship in enterprise planning, engineering, mental property safety, and the appliance of superior connectivity, sensing, AI/ML and different processing applied sciences for progressive end-to-end programs options. This system is the primary of its variety in Africa and is designed so as to add to the continued development of the continent’s know-how startup ecosystem.

“As a part of our new Africa Innovation Platform, the Qualcomm Make in Africa mentorship program is certainly one of many initiatives we’re engaged on in shut collaboration with authorities and business stakeholders in Africa, to assist place African entrepreneurs and researchers to service markets all through the continent and notice their world ambitions. We imagine that startups primarily based in Africa are finest positioned  to establish uniquely African issues that may be solved by means of end-to-end programs options and new enterprise fashions,” stated Elizabeth Migwalla, Vice President and Head of Authorities Affairs (Center East and Africa), Qualcomm Worldwide, Inc. “We congratulate the shortlisted firms and sit up for a fruitful collaboration for innovation within the coming months.”

The shortlisted firms and their know-how options are (sorted by alphabetical order):

·         Ecorich Options – patented natural composting in Kenya

·         Fixbot – Automobile diagnostics and inspection through OBD dongle in Nigeria

·         Karaa – e-Bike monitoring, charging, retrofit, and leases in Uganda

·         Maotronics Techniques Restricted – IOT-enabled precision agriculture in Nigeria

·         Microfuse – Inexpensive plugin computer systems for the training sector in Uganda

·         Neural Labs Africa Ltd – Deep studying and pc imaginative and prescient for healthcare analysis in Kenya and Senegal

·         OneTouch Diagnostics – Diabetes patch and monitoring system in Nigeria

·         QuadLoop – Leveraging e-waste for photo voltaic e-Lanterns and battery storage in Nigeria.

·         SLS Power – Recycled lead-cell battery storage banks in Rwanda

·         SolarTaxi – Electrical automobile (EV) taxi and fleet administration in Ghana

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