eHealth Startup Chefaa Wins Egyptian Leg Of DEMO Africa Innovation Tour
The Cairo edition of the DEMO Africa Innovation Tour was the final event in the North African regional round and having emerged winners, eHealth startup, Chefaa, will now join Moldiag and Toufoula Kids; their counterparts from Morocco and Tunisia respectively, in Morocco, for this year’s DEMO Africa finale that has been slated for October.
As indicated by a press statement released in the aftermath of the event, the Cairo edition was successfully hosted as a result of the duo of Flat6Labs Cairo and DEMO Africa pulling resources and working together to create an atmosphere that supports the unearthing of some of the best innovations and entrepreneurial talents available in the country. The Cairo event witnessed pitches from ten promising startups who were competing with each other for the spoils which included a place in the grand finale, where they could stand a chance to go all the way. The eventual winning startup, Chefaa, is a vision-driven company that enhances the experience of patients by fast-tracking the processes involved in ordering/scheduling consultations and having pharmaceutical products delivered within minutes.
Amongst the distinguished personalities who were saddled with the responsibility of vetting the participating startups and scrutinizing their offerings as the competition’s jury were such notable names as Khalid Machchate of DEMO Africa, Moustafa Khater of Flat6Labs, Ibrahim Ramadan of Sawari Ventures, Ahmed Tohamy of RiseUp, Norhan Sakkout of Limevest, and The Curve’s Hanzada Abou Youssef.
From the initial ten competing startups, five teams were granted passage to the second round of the competition from where Team Chefaa were unanimously named winners. 7aweshny, TriggerIt, Niotek, and MedMisr make up the rest of the top five in the Cairo edition. On the route to victory, Doaa Aref, Chefaa’s Team Leader, is quoted as saying; “Chefaa helps locate medicine in a click by our real-time search engine, in addition to our CSR platform which supports donations and helps the less fortunate get medicines. Our services also extend to non-pharmaceuticals via our eCommerce platform. We charge a monthly subscription fee for our monthly packages and a commission on transactions completed via our app.”
Alongside other Northern African winners in the form of Moldiag and Toufoula Kids, Chefaa will now proceed to Morocco for the pan-African finals. The successful startups in each region automatically qualify to be part of the pool of 30, from where the successful startup(s) will be provided with resources worth over USD 150 K. This will include USD 120 K in software tools from Microsoft, as well as USD 15 K from AWS as a financial incentive that will assist in the development of the business.
Having had several winners emerge from a number of sister events successfully hosted across various regions of Africa, the DEMO Africa Innovation Tour seems poised to herald a bigger and better DEMO Africa grand event. DEMO Africa represents one of the flagship initiatives of Lions@frica. It is aimed at affording African startups the opportunity to connect with the global ecosystem and leverage the potentials therein. The DEMO Africa stage serves as a platform for the most innovative companies across Africa to launch their products and announce their solutions to the world.
Image credit: teckhawk
