The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), in partnership with the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MinT), is selecting six startups from Ethiopia to go to the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) Global, one of the world’s largest startup and annual tech conferences with over 100,000 visitors.
The annual flagship conference takes place in Dubai between October 9 and October 15 and is attended by thought leaders, creators, innovators, and investors.
Tech-based startups in Ethiopia that engage in agritech, digitization of analogized payment, data storage systems, e-commerce, health-tech, tourism-tech, manufacturing-tech, and mining-tech, are invited to apply.
Selected startups will go to Dubai and get dedicated promotional space at the GITEX conference named “startup pod,” where the startups can advertise their business on the spot.
In addition, selected startups will get an opportunity to match with investors and companies, create connections with startup stakeholders in the startup world, and participate in the GITEX award event in Ethiopia.
JICA will cover all costs of participation in GITEX, such as flight fees, visa fees, marketing pods in GITEX for startups, and participation at the pitch event in Dubai and GITEX event in Ethiopia.
To compete at the event, startups must be registered as a legal entity, have a minimum of one year of existence but not greater than seven years, have their business model and product/service must be tech-enabled and have a post-revenue business with a minimum of six months of sustained revenue.
Furthermore, they must be able to quickly scale, be at least at seed funding level, and be based in Ethiopia. Click here to learn more about the application process that closes on August 14, 2022. You can also find the application form by clicking here.
JICA, the development wing of the government of Japan, is supporting GITEX Ethiopia through its NINJA (NINJA: Next Innovation with Japan) project.
Since 2020, Project Ninja has been promoting the growth of startups that solve social issues as a business. It has organized and supported many contests in Ethiopia, such as Solve IT.
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