Edtech iStudy wins Seedstars Tripoli as two startups tie for third place

Libyan edtech startup iStudy has won Seedstars Tripoli. The pitching event, run by Swiss emerging markets competition Seedstars was held on Sunday (20 October) at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Tripoli, Libya.

It’s the second year that Seedstars has held the event in Tripoli. Last year the event was won by another Libyan edtech startup, Elham Education (see this story).

The startup, which was founded by Zakaria Ghwela in 2017, has developed a platform that connects parents and schools, as well as facilitating communication between them.

The startup will now represent Libya in the regional summit in Morocco in December and in the Seedstars Summit 2020 in Switzerland.

Libyan edtech iStudy has developed a platform that connects parents and schools

Second place went to Cling, a startup founded by Mohamed Abdulgader, which has developed has a solar-powered device that measures the rate of air humidity, soil moisture, temperature, and light intensity for plants, the device will then transmit the data to the user in real-time.

Third place was a tie between Speetar, an online medical platform that connects patients in Libya with doctors abroad, and Alhakim Allebi, also an online medical platform that allows the users to ask for medical house calls.

Event attended by Economy minister

In all, 400 people attended the event, including Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Al-Essaw. Among the attendees were also a large number of businessmen, investors, and young entrepreneurs, which all had an interest in entrepreneurship, the event was covered by more than 10 TV and radio stations.

In all, 102 startups have applied for the competition, 27 of which were chosen by the Seedstars committee to receive a one-day training by mentors with 22 attending the training.

The judges chose nine startups to pitch in the final event. The five remaining were ABC kids, Fahhemni, Deraz Corner, Qusba Medical Care and Savana.

In addition to that, the event’s sponsors have offered a variety of awards to a startup of their choice.

• Edtech Fahemni won a 10 000 Libyan dinar ($7000) award from Libyan mobile phone company Libyana.
• Speetar won an award from Stream which includes access to the incubator’s co-working space, meeting rooms, and VIP access to their exclusive events.
• Cling clinched two awards, one was a one-year subscription for high-speed internet from Rawafed, and the other was by Tatweer Research for free access to the organisation’s co-working space.

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Featured image: Tarek via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)