Today was the second round of the ZOL Startup Challenge. 10 Startups were pitching for a spot in in the final 5 who, in the coming weeks will be pitching for the top spot. It was as usual a very exciting day for everyone involved. Lots of energy and passion from the teams was evident. Here’s the list of the 5 finalists (in no particular order):
- ZimboKitchen – a local food blog with some interesting products it provides around the food content.
- SpryAds – an ad exchange looking to solve online ad selling and buying for local publishers and brands.
- Testlabs – A test platform providing local test content for training drivers as well as high school students.
- BlacktoeTV – A local entertainment video portal
- FrontrowZim – an online sports media service focusing on local schools sports.
We’d like to congratulate them all, and wish them the best in the coming weeks! You can check out some photos from the event, that we posted on Facebook here.
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8 comments
I have been following the Surge Event from the days it was the ZOL Jumpastart thinging. I think there is a bit of some poor planning on part of the organisers of the event.
Honestly, how can there be one catergory for such a broad thing? Look, here we have Zimbokitchen and FrontrowZim which are blogs competing with Testlabs which is an app!
On what criteria will these be judged because monitising a blog is whole different ball game than monitising an app!
Its not the way such an event should be run. its just that in the absence of choice and variety, the going menu is good and in times of famine even bitter food tastes sweet!
A good start for you would be understanding what they’re looking for.
Whilst I applaud the effort that TechZim and its partners are doing to support tech innovation in Zimbabwe, I am afraid that awarding prizes or recognition to someone for starting a blog will have the counter-effect – unless if the whole thing is not about innovation to start with.
These fly by apps and blogs are a far cry from what we really need. What we need in Zimbabwe is a Technology Incubator. We could learn one or two things from Kenya’s iHub, NewMe Accelerator in the states or a plethora of other such tech hubs that are mushrooming worldwide.
My top 5 would have been
1. Capu: Mobile Money Management –
2. Sante
3.. Testlabs
4. Spryads
5. Frontrowzim
Congratulations to the finalists,but surely, the level of apps chosen is discouraging. Blogs, Blogs, Blogs…show very little if any innovation. Let’s prioritize apps that solve people’s problems and are innovative. I would have taken ZimboKitchen, FrontrowZim and BlacktoeTV off the top 10 completely! No hard feelings! We need innovation.
Hi Well done to techzim for their marvellous initiatives. I am just wondering why some seem against blogs, if we look at the essences of Zimbo Kitchen and TechZim, they are basically doing the same thing, disseminating information and building an industry in a unique way. There may be many apps, which is fantastic, but there is more to IT than the development of apps. We might as well go on further to say we want more hardware developers, companies that are going to make products compete with android phones or tablets. A start up which has a solid business case, that is set to benefit a multitude of people irrespective of whether its software/hardware or blogging should be allowed to enter. The key criteria being solid, bankable business case. Well done again Techzim and your sponsors. 5 stars from me.
suprised that our online app : ZwB didnt make it.
It the first of its kind in Zimbabwe and the quality is exceptional