Zimbabwean startup saisai winner of the SWELL Award at DEMO Africa

According to news coming from VC4Africa’s live blog, Zimbabwean startup saisai which was representing the country at this year’s DEMO Africa Startup showcase in Nigeria has been announced as the winner of the SWELL Innovation Award.

SWELL is a global innovation partnership and corporate innovation accelerator backed by some notable tech corporations. Through partnerships with talented startups it solves some complex problems and in the process delivers new products and services to the global market.

saisai WIreless was part of seven teams nominated from the 40 startups at DEMO Africa. These seven pitched their ideas for the SWELL award to a panel of judges that included executives from Microsoft, Evernote, Grand Central and Nokia with saisai Wireless being picked as the winning startup.

Saisai Wireless has been working on the setup and implementation of a wireless mesh network made up of free access WiFi hot-spots in public areas and public transportation like kombis. The project has been piloted in Bulawayo as the team is from the city’s National University of Science and Technology.

With this accolade the Saisai team gets an all-expense paid trip to Silicon Valley and will be part of the SWELL Innovation Tour. This comes with participation in SWELL’s intensive soft landing program in the USA aimed at exposing the team to strategic investment opportunities and activities centred on business development.