Qualcomm Technologies Inc., an American company says it has selected 10 startups to participate in its inaugural Qualcomm ‘Make in Africa’ seven months mentorship programme.
Sudeepto Roy, Vice President, Engineering, Qualcomm Incorporated made this known in a statement on Saturday.
He said the programme was part of the Qualcomm Africa Innovation Platform announced in December 2022.
Roy said the startups were developing innovative products in clean energy, agricultural technology, computing for education, geospatial predictive analysis, medical technologies, and innovations utilizing electric vehicles.
He noted that several startups also featured women in prominent leadership roles.
Roy said the startups selected were based in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and Rwanda, adding that they were selected from a pool of 550 applicants from 34 African countries.
“They were carefully selected by a global jury based on a variety of qualifications including technical capabilities, business factors, and potential for innovation and intellectual property generation.
“The Qualcomm Make In Africa startups will receive equity-free mentorship in business planning, engineering, intellectual property protection, and the application of advanced connectivity, sensing, Artificial Intelligence and other processing technologies for innovative end-to-end systems solutions.
“The programme is the first of its kind in Africa and is designed to add to the continued growth of the continent’s technology startup ecosystem, “Roy said.
He said the companies shortlisted and their technology solutions included Ecorich Solutions (patented organic composting) Kenya, Fixbot (Vehicle diagnostics and inspection via OBD dongle) Nigeria, Karaa( e-Bike tracking, charging, retrofit and rentals) Uganda and Maotronics Systems Ltd. (IOT-enabled precision agriculture) Nigeria.
Roy said that others were Microfuse (Affordable plugin computers for the education sector) Uganda, Neural Labs Africa Ltd. (Deep learning and computer vision for healthcare diagnosis) Kenya and Senegal and OneTouch Diagnostics (Diabetes patch and monitoring system) Nigeria.
“We also selected QuadLoop ( Leveraging e-waste for solar e-Lanterns and battery storage) Nigeria, SLS Energy (Recycled lead-cell battery storage banks) Rwanda, Solar Taxi ( Electric vehicle taxi and fleet management) Ghana, “he said
Roy noted that Qualcomm Make in Africa would provide one on one mentorship for the shortlisted companies with Qualcomm leaders on a regular cadence to guide startups to product realization.
He said that they would also provide master classes on product management, pitch clinic, IPR, and hardware architecture.
Roy added that the programme would culminate in a finale demo day in December 2023, connecting startups with various industry leaders, venture capitalists, investors, and other accelerators.
“Over the next few months, we will mentor them in areas of business development, technology applications and intellectual property law.
“We are honored to be able to participate in their entrepreneurial journey and their future impact in Africa, “he said.
Elizabeth Migwalla, Vice President and Head of Government Affairs, Middle East and Africa) Qualcomm Inc. said they were working in close collaboration with government and industry stakeholders in Africa, to help position African entrepreneurs and researchers to service markets throughout the continent.
She said they believed startups based in Africa were best placed to identify uniquely African problems that could be solved through end-to-end systems solutions and new business models.
“We congratulate the shortlisted companies and look forward to a fruitful collaboration for innovation in the coming months, “Migwalla said.
