Aircraft manufacturing firm, Airbus has unveiled its second edition of Africa4Future initiative and has also thrown open its doors for African tech start-ups to join its six-month long acceleration programme.
Airbus said in a statement that applications for the joint programme will be handled by MEST and Cape Town-based innovation consultancy Innocircle and will close on 31 November. 10 start-ups will be selected after a review process to join the programme which begins on the 7th of January.
The joint accelerator programme is organized by Airbus’ global aerospace accelerator, BizLab and Make-IT in Africa, an initiative of the German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ).
Start-ups that are working on solutions related to – unmanned logistics and remote-sensing technology, automation and drones, electrification, blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics and material composites and manufacturing are expected to apply.
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Selected start-ups will receive:
- Access to industry-leading experts at Airbus sites in Europe.
- Feedback on their technology and business models from top engineers.
- The opportunity to showcase their start-ups at the Paris International Airshow in June 2019.
- The opportunity to launch a collaborative project with key Airbus departments.
- A space at MEST Incubators in Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Cape Town (South Africa) or Nairobi (Kenya) from January to June 2019, where they will have the opportunity to become part of the global MEST tech start-up community.
Africa4Future initiative was first launched in 2017 and was created by Airbus BizLab with the aim of encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship in Africa. Through the Africa4future initiative, Airbus seeks to build bridges between the aerospace industry and the different players in Africa.
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