Seedstars, the global organization with the mission of impacting people’s lives in emerging markets through entrepreneurship and technology, launched its second edition of Seedstars CEE Regional Summit.
After hosting competitions in 12 countries throughout 2017, identifying the most promising startups and analyzing the local ecosystems, Seedstars World is now bringing together top 12 startups that they discovered in 2017 from across Ukraine and 11 startups across CEE, Central Asia and MENA region together with with ecosystem players, mentors, investors, corporates and other entrepreneurs across the continent.
The Summit is organized by the global seed-stage startup competition for emerging markets Seedstars World and hosted by local ambassador organisation Creative Space Chasopys in strategic partnership with Omidyar Network in order to impact startup ecosystem in Ukraine and CEE. The event is also supported by Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine.
Last year, the conference took place in Astana, Kazakhstan and gathered 450 attendees, 18 startups, 38 mentors and speakers with 122 one-to-one meetings held during the event.
The CEE Regional Summit will last for 3 days and brings together over 600 attendees commencing with a bootcamp for the participating startups, an ecosystem tour, investor day and culminate with a Conference and Pitch event on December 7 that will feature the startup pitches, keynotes, and panel discussions that will engage a range of topics and ideas pertinent to entrepreneurs in the region.
“We have been on a long and interesting journey when it comes to entrepreneurship and technology in emerging markets. As part of the Seedstars DNA we want to be on the ground working directly with startups, corporates and other stakeholders. This is exactly the reason why we are traveling to 88+ ecosystems globally this year and 9 countries in CEE. We are very excited to be able to bring the entire network together in Ukraine later this year and together look into some of the opportunities of the continent and explore how technologies can rapidly improve the current status quo in emerging markets worldwide,” says Igor Ovcharenko, Business Developer at Seedstars.
THE CEE SUMMIT – Thursday, December 7th, 2017
The summit day kicks off with a number of workshops and roundtables addressing a wide range of emerging market specific challenges over a number of different industries (EduTech, EnergyTech, AgTech, Fintech, Healthtech, CivicTech and more). These sessions are part of Seedstars’ global initiative to bring together the most prominent experts, entrepreneurs and industry leaders in CEE, and facilitate meaningful discussions leading to tangible outcomes that can be implemented across the region.
During the final ceremony of Seedstars CEE Summit, 11 of the most prominent entrepreneurs from the CEE region will be invited on stage to showcase their success stories and how they are using technology to solve local and regional issues. Other than the final pitches, top speakers will join the event on the mainstage to provide valuable insights on their businesses, investments and will look into the success factors of the continent as well as the elements that still need to be improved in order to allow an CEE startup to scale and compete on a global stage.
Within CEE Summit the national Ukrainian final will be held which 12 selected startups from Lviv, Odessa and Kyiv will compete for the regional prize — opportunity to join other CEE winners in Switzerland and compete for up to $ 1 000 000 of investments.
Entrepreneurs need Technology to make their network strong and to give a boom to their start-ups. technology is everywhere and it should be used by everyone to make their life at ease and the technology is doing that.