WINDHOEK – Out of the 15 categories, Namibia brought home two awards from the recent Southern Africa Startup Awards (SASAwards), which was held for the first time to celebrate and recognise the spirit of innovation and achievement in the startup ecosystem in the SADC region. SASA Namibia was represented by 11 regional winners from nine startups at the SASAwards grand finale that took place on 21 and 22 November 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
At the ceremony, ‘Founder of the Year’ was won by Kennedy Liswani of Elephonic Mobile Technologies, while twin brothers, Demetrio and Devano Möwes, of Solve Namibia scooped the Best Water Crisis Management Solution award.
Every country was expected to produce a country winner in 15 respective categories, such as: Startup of the year, Best newcomer, Founder of the year, Best financial tech startup, Best student startup, and Best food tech and Agritech startup, amongst others. SASA Namibia, like in any other SADC country, uses platforms sponsored the Global Startup Awards.
The Namibia Business Innovation Institute (NBII) of the Namibia University of Science and Technology, in partnership with the National Commission on Research Science and Technology (NCRST), are the node of Southern Africa Start-up Award (SASA). The SASA is an official Southern Africa circuit for the Global Startup Awards, which has been running annually since 2012. The global Startup Award is celebrated in 45 countries across seven regions, including Nordics, Central Europe, and Southern Africa.
Southern African joined in 2018, and has already all 15 SADC countries signed up with the initiative. The Global Startup Award annually interacts with in excess of 100 000 startups, entrepreneurs, investors, and journalists throughout the award shows, and it has over 200 000 fans or followers throughout social media. Some of the organisations that support the Global Startup Awards include: Google, MasterCard, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM.
“On behalf of NBII and our partner: NCRST, we thank all our sponsors and contributors: FNB Namibia, SAIS, and the Namibian government for the contribution in rolling out this important programme. We trust that with their continued support of this initiative, we will establish and strengthen the startup ecosystem,” said the Manager of Innovation Marketplace at NBII, Silas Newaka. “Namibia, be ready for 2019 when the SASAwards are coming back even bigger and better” he added.