Swiss Africa Business Innovation Initiative Selects 8 African Winners and Introduces 9 Swiss Entrepreneurs to African Markets

04.11.2019 18:00, Guillaume Tinsel

The Swiss Africa Business Innovation Initiative boosts the entrepreneurial know-how and exposure of Sub-Saharan graduate students – entrepreneurs in mobile health, pharmacometrics, innovative financing and digital humanities. SABII brings these entrepreneurs seeking growth opportunities to innovation hotspots in Addis Ababa and Switzerland.

Congratulations to the African winning teams of the Swiss–Africa Business Innovation Initiative's program starting today in Addis Ababa with workshops with the Swiss Teams.#sabii pic.twitter.com/HOgGoi7L9G

— Venturelab (@venturelab_ch) October 28, 2019

After a three-day workshop with top level entrepreneurs in Addis Ababa and final pitches to an African-Swiss jury, eight startups - TyphGen, Pennysmart, Inocul8, Tyncbest, Sosocare, HerHealthKit, I can Farm, eTrash2Cash - won selection for an intense, four-day entrepreneurial development tour through Switzerland in March 2020.



During the following days they joined AfriLabs' Annual Gathering in Addis Ababa, meeting entrepreneurs and potential business partners from across Africa. Here they also connected with the team of winning Swiss startups visiting for the Africa Market Discovery Camp: Chiweto, CommoChain SA, Improving Cancer Care, MPower Ventures AG, derma2go AG, DIY Solar Lamps, CosKin, enable | digital AG, and aventura.aero AG. The teams of startup founders enjoyed joint meetings, mentoring and peer-exchanges on building companies in their respective markets. On the last day of the program, the whole group was invited to the Swiss ambassador's residence for a networking reception.

SABII, an initiative of the University of Basel, is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI, and co-organized by AfriLabs and Venturelab.