Food Match are the winners of Startup Weekend Harare

The second edition of Startup Weekend Harare came to an end this afternoon with Food Match being selected as the winner of the 54 hour tech entrepreneurship building marathon.

Food Match was working on a platform that identifies and sources from retailers perishable food that is about to expire. It then sells this inventory at discounted prices through a city-wide vendor distribution network.

The first runners up where Getsi.co (previously known as Is There Zesa) which is an app that notifies users of power outages in their residential area.

The second runners up were Mhuri Yethu which is a community driven crowd funding platform for cancer patients that cannot afford the expensive treatment.

There was feedback from the judges regarding the startup solutions that had been pitched at the Startup Weekend Harare finals. The startups were encouraged to explore their ideas further even if it meant that they would have to pivot their solutions to adapt to the market conditions.

An important aspect that was reinforced by the judges was how startups need to have a full, appreciation of who would pay for their service and appreciating the complexities involved in getting a customer to move from a pledge to pay for a service to actually forking out the dollars and cents.

The winners of Startup Weekend Harare will get access to a host of services and support for their solutions in addition to incubation at Hypercube Hub Harare.

All the participants are also eligible to enter the Global Startup Battle which is a the worldwide tech startup competition for teams that have taken part in different Startup Weekend challenges in various cities around the world.