The French Tech Mauritius, in partnership with the CCIFM and FINAM, organizes for the first time the Tech4Good Challenge in Mauritius. . This competition will allow the winning company to accelerate its international expansion.
A content-rich launch
The launch of the challenge took place on December 2nd, and offered a full program to the audience. First, Jérôme Katz, Head of Strategy and Investment at Mauritius Union Assurance, highlighted the two main assets of startups: their agility and their proximity to the client in the design and deployment of a solution, hence the interest of this type of partnership. Afterwards, Natacha Emilien, co-founder of RedDot, took the floor to give advice on effective collaboration practices between large companies and startups. Indeed, these are two parties with different ways of operating. So, to facilitate this partnership, startups and large companies should agree to focus on the product or service to be offered to the customer. This would be an important anchor point to overcome the differences in culture between corporates and startups. Finally, the launch ended with a testimonial from Paul Perrier, co-founder of FUNDKISS – a startup that offers a lending platform for Mauritian SMEs. He advised the startups to “not give up”, and to be resilient to overcome the difficulties that will inevitably arise, and encouraged to promote this type of competitions that contribute to the growth of the Mauritian ecosystem.
Supporting entrepreneurship in Mauritius
This competition aims to encourage collaborations between startups and large companies, but also to support “Tech for Good” projects aimed at improving society and the environment. Thus, for large companies and experts, it is a challenge that represents a good opportunity to support innovation and entrepreneurship in Mauritius, to identify startups with potential and to establish technological and commercial partnerships. Their role will be to support the selected startups in various ways, such as providing professionals as mentors or coaches, material resources adapted to the supported projects or a financial commitment.
This challenge is part of a set of activities submitted to the ‘Community Fund French Tech 2021’ supported by the Mission French Tech in France. The application coordinated by the Cape Town French Tech community in South Africa was approved as a collective project of eight French Tech communities in Africa, and supported by Business France.
8 startups selected
After the launch of the call for applications, the startups Discover Mauritius, EC3, FinClub, Inspectforless, La Déchetèque, NanoSAIO, SonarPulse, Yugo were selected for their innovative solutions, as well as for their international ambitions. These startups will benefit from personalized support from experts, thematic webinars and masterclasses, a wider network and potential outlets, and national visibility. The winner of the challenge will receive worldwide visibility, as well as an “acceleration package” consisting of support and an immediate investment.
