The sixth edition of the annual Global Seedstars Summit will be held in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2 – 5, 2019. Hosted by Seedstars, this premier event for discovering the top startups in the world’s emerging and fastest-growing economies. As the final stage of the 2018 Seedstars World Competition, the Seedstars Summit will showcase the 64 most promising startups from emerging economies in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, who will compete for the title of Seedstars Global Winner and up to $500K in equity investment.
More than 1000 participants will be on hand at the Swiss Tech Convention Center (EPFL campus) to strategically devise innovative solutions in five key sectors: healthcare, finance, education, agriculture and energy. The primary goal of this event & the selected pioneer startups is to create a positive global impact. Seedstars vows to be the vehicle to equip them with financial support and most importantly nurturing, mentoring and connecting them with a network of experts.
Among the many sessions during the Summit will be a private bootcamp on April 2nd and 3nd. Pre-selected startups will refine their growth strategy and participate in one-on-one meetings with mentors from the world’s top companies like Merck, Microsoft, Nestle, Standard Bank and many more. Khaled Ismail (Board Member, Feather Invest), Kim Neel Wyong (Senior Partner, Optiteam), Martin Johnson (Board Member, Sophia Business Angels) will be among those sharing their knowledge on emerging market investment opportunities, precisely in Africa, India and Latin America.
The Investor Forum on April 4th will be a platform for well-known investors to connect with Seedstars World startups for 1:1 meetings and 1-minute pitches. Later that day, Fabio Cannavale, CEO of lastminute.com, and Géraldine Fasnacht, the elite basejumper, snowboard freerider & entrepreneur, will talk about risk taking and share personal experience in entrepreneurship and investment to inspire and guide the startup teams and investors in the room.
The Summit’s final day on April 5th will be engineered around three main spaces – Workshop Rooms, the Main Stage, and the Breakout stage.
Workshops will take place in the morning. In the AgriTech room, participants will explore how tech can effectively improve our soil quality, as the UN estimates that we will have to double our agricultural output by 2050 to keep up with this worldwide population growth. On the healthcare side, while,1.3 billion people in the world lack access to affordable and qualitative healthcare, and as investments in HealthTech grow exponentially (more than $4.5 billion invested in 2017 according to KPMG), all the prospects and pitfalls of electronic health will be covered during another four-hour workshop.
Other workshop topics will include Plastic Waste & The Recycling Value Chain; Bridging the Urban-Rural Education gap with Technology; Inclusive & Topically-Focused Entrepreneurial Ecosystems as well as Partnerships for Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets. During the afternoon, the Main Stage will be divided according to the five sectors Tech Hours. On the CleanTech side, an industry that’s soon expected to reach a value of $4 trillion, Amar Inamdar from KawiSafi Ventures will present and Sixteen-year-old energy innovator Maanasa Mendu will follow with a keynote address.
More startups will take Main Stage to pitch during the Agritech, HealthTech, Fintech and EdTech hours, with more keynote speeches, including Freddy Vega (CEO, Platzi), Noah Kadima (CEO, Africa Farmers Club), Tania Douglas (Professor, University of Cape Town).
Simultaneously on the Breakout Stage, smaller groups will focus on shorter sessions discussing the latest trends around #innovation, #impact, and #investment. Topics discussed are mainly focused around Industry 4.0, learning about the current technological breakthroughs, specifically in Emerging markets; Millennials Shift of the Mindset, Peace Innovation & Conflict Resolution via Technology; and Fundraising in Emerging Market and Beyond.
Among the companies and institutions that help make the Seedstars Summit 2019 possible are SPEI, School of Management Fribourg (HEG Fribourg), TRECC (Jacobs Foundation), TAG Heuer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rising Tide Foundation, EPFL (École Polytéchnique de Lausanne), CVCI (Chambre Vaudoise du Commerce et de l’Industrie), Lausanne Région and Ville de Lausanne, Nespresso.
Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company
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