JFDI’s new pre-accelerator program is set to coach 60 new startups
ISIF Asia founding award winners in Kenya.
JFDI.Asia announced today that generous financial support from the Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF) will allow 60 additional startup business teams to join the JFDI Discover pre-accelerator program, starting next week. The 60 teams are all ISIF Asia funding winners seeking to accelerate their learning and thereby scale and grow the impact of their ideas.
ISIF Asia is a program that allocates grants and awards to innovate Internet solutions that address development needs in the Asia-Pacific region. Its winners will now get help to apply the powerful startup tools and techniques taught through the 21-day JFDI Discover pre-accelerator program. The aim is to give them confidence and evidence to answer the key questions that angel investors, accelerators, and government agencies are certain to ask them, such as: “Who is your customer?”, “What problem are you solving for them?” and “Has this team got what it takes to succeed?”
APNIC operates the ISIF Asia Secretariat. APNIC Community grants and awards specialist Sylvia Cadena said: “The ISIF Asia program has allocated small grants since 2008 to a variety of organizations from the civil society, academia and the private sector, from over 20 economies in the Asia Pacific region. Many of those organizations are developing a business approach to enter the market through the creative solutions that they were able to design and implement. Many of them are now challenged by the need to grow and scale. We are sure the JFDI Discover program is the first step on their journey and we are very excited about helping them to get on the right track.”
All the ISIF Asia funding recipients benefitting from ISIF support to join JFDI Discover have fascinating stories to tell about how their technology and businesses will impact lives positively — too many stories to list here — but by way of example:
• Amakomaya is an Android application developed for rural pregnant women of Nepal. The application provides localized information relating to the prenatal, natal and postnatal periods of pregnancy.
• Cook Islands Maori Database is an online resource for Maori Words, their English translations with example usage in a sentence in both English and Maori, that offers a platform on which other applications can be built to preserve the language and promote its use. The team developed an android and IOS application, as well as teaching and learning resources for both teachers and student to facilitate integration of the tools into Maori lessons.
• Sinar’s main objective is to improve governance and encourage greater citizen involvement in the public affairs of the nation by making the Malaysian Government more open, transparent and accountable. They have developed a suite of applications for citizens to get involved.
• BAPSI has developed solutions to help deaf-blind people access mobile phones as the solutions available for the blind (voice recognition), are of no use for the deaf and vice versa (voice to text conversions).
JFDI CEO Hugh Mason said, “Achieving positive impact with a startup is not easy in many parts of Asia. Alongside the impact, we want to help these teams to think about how they can become commercially sustainable to ensure that their good work continues long into the future. There is a lot to learn and share and we have every confidence that long-term collaborations and friendships will grow from this program, creating wealth for the 56 Asia-Pacific economies ISIF Asia covers and beyond.”
Photo Credit: ISIF Asia website
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