The six-month Smart Cities Innovation Programme, which was launched by the Rwandan Ministry of ICT and Innovation and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), is designed to help African startups scale innovative products that can boost urbanization potential, ensuring smart cities achieve inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
The program directly helps Africa’s urban development in line with the Sustainable Development Goals by scaling smart city concepts.
Green City Kigali, Rwanda’s pilot initiative for green urbanization, is used as an application case for smart cities in the program.
Startups work on a viable business proposition and investigate the possibilities of the Rwandan market by testing and adapting their solutions under actual market conditions.
Six months of holistic support will be provided to these firms, including virtual and physical training, individual coaching, and mentoring from seasoned specialists.
They’ll also get access to the program’s corporate and public partners, as well as investors, allowing for plenty of networking and matchmaking opportunities.
The 31 startups were chosen from over 300 applicants who responded to an open call for applications that ran from April to May.
Cleantech & Smart Housing, Smart Mobility, and Fintech for Affordability are the three tracks in which the selected startups will address common challenges in smart cities.
The following start-ups were chosen for each track:
Fintech for Affordability track
- Cofundie (Ghana & Nigeria)
- Naa Sika Micro Savings (Ghana)
- Cladfy, Digiduka (Kenya)
- Mopay (Rwanda)
- Flow, Payclide (Uganda)
- Angle Dimension (Malawi, Zambia, Botswana)
- Insure Pay(Zambia)
Cleantech & Smart Housing track
- Scrapays, Koolboks, Gas360n (Nigeria)
- Messibat (Ivory Coast)
- EcoPlastile (Uganda)
- Urbany Africa (Rwanda)
- Dove Air (South Africa)
Smart Mobility track
- EWarren Financial Services (Ivory Coast/Canada)
- Kiri EV, Mazi Mobility, BasiGo, Smatbeba, e-safiri, Expendo,(Kenya)
- Digital Blind Walking Stick, Gura Universal Link, STES Group Limited (Rwanda)
- KaCyber Security Tech (Uganda)
- Tuverl (Zimbabwe)
- Optimalogistic (Tunisia)
- Transport for Cairo (Egypt)
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