The TechCrunch Battlefield Africa event will take place on October 11th in Nairobi, Kenya. The event was announced back in May of this year that the event will be held in Africa for the very first time this year.
The event will choose a total of 15 startups; these startups will earn the opportunity to pitch their ideas with the hopes of earning the title of the most promising startup in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
The event will also feature speeches and lectures from world-class speakers and judges. There will also be fireside chats panels.
Some of the speakers who will be attending the event include Bob Collymore, the CEO of the leading mobile network provider in Kenya Safaricom, Uche Ofodile of the company behind Facebook, and BRCK CEO Erik Hersman who will be discussing connectivity.
The CEO of Sacha Poignonnec, Jumia, along with EchoVC’s Eghosa Omoigui and Paga’s Tayo Oviosu will be discussing the strategies that companies can employ to become unicorns in their fields.
The CEO of AppsTech, Rebecca Enonchong, will be joining IBM Africa’s Nik Nesbitt and Wambui Kinya, the chief strategy officer of Andela, to talk about what it takes as a leader to build the right teams as well as the right tools to enlist all while staying under budget.
The competition of the 15 chosen startups will take place mainly in front of a live audience. The judges for the event have already been confirmed: Chris Savides, the head of Naspers’ Showmax Africa, IFC senior investment officer Wale Ayeni, the founder of Nataal Helen Jennings, Aaron Fu, who is the managing director at MEST, and the founding partner of Agile Venture Capital, Shuonan Chen.
The startup that ends up on top of the rest will secure a fund of $25,000 USD as well as a free trip for two to San Francisco to participate in TechCrunch’s flagship event, known as Disrupt SF, in 2018.