African tech startups have three weeks left to enter DEMO Africa 2017

African tech startups have until 31 August to apply for this year’s edition of DEMO Africa.

It follows the extension of the application window from 30 April to 31 August 2017 by the organisers Lions@frica. a partnership between non-profit organisations and tech companies.

While the DEMO Africa 2017 event had initially been scheduled to take place between 6 and 7 September, it will take place between 23 and 24 November in Johannesburg.

The programme aims to link tech startups with investors and technology buyers and by doing so connecting African tech startups to the global ecosystem.

Startups with innovative working scalable products in energy, health, education, agriculture, e-commerce, hospitality, manufacturing, entertainment and logistics can apply to enter. The names of those startups selected for the programme will be announced next month.

In the last five years DEMO Africa has launched 0ver 180 startups that have raised R700-million

The 30 selected startups will participate in an eight-week DEMO Africa programme where they will each get access to R3.3-million in mentorship, tools and services from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.

Since the launch of the programme five years ago, 180 startups have gone on to raise R700-million in investment and business deals.

Last year, 723 startups applied for the programme and over 600 delegates consisting of investors and policymakers attended last year’s event where up to 30 products were launched.

Read more: DEMO Africa 2016 concludes for the first time in South Africa

Earlier this year Demo Africa toured 10 cities across Africa as part of its invitational tour looking for startups to nominate for the competition. The cities visited in the tour are Abidjan, Accra, Cassablanca, Dar es Salaam, Harare, Kampala, Lagos, Lusaka, Nairobi and Tunis.

Harry Hare, executive director and producer at DEMO Africa, said the tour will ensure that there will be representatives from across Africa at the event. A regional competition to choose four startups from the 10 selected on the tour will take place in the first week of September during the adjudication period. The four selected startups will then join the pool of online applications.

Read more: DEMO Africa to hold mini events in search for startups

Those interested in applying can do so through the Venture Africa portal. Registrations for the event can be done here.

Featured image: Blue Coat Photos via Flickr (CC 2.0 BY-SA, resized)