Today at Mobile
World Congress, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom and Intel announced Challenge Up! a
joint Internet of Things (IoT) accelerator for startups from the Europe, Middle
East and Africa (EMEA) region. The program aims at helping innovative IoT
startups go-to-market faster through joint projects, mentoring, high-value
networking and corporate assets. Selected companies would also be opportune to
receive strategic investment and support commercializing their product or
service for global markets.
Speaking on this,
Senior Vice President in charge of Europe B2B at Deutsche Telekom, Elias Drakopoulos,
stated that “With Challenge Up! We are giving a great signal to the startup
world, bringing together the resources and know-how of three corporations. We
will use our combined experience for the benefit of the Challenge Up! Program
and the support of the startup community”.
Challenge Up! is
designed for early-stage startups creating solutions for the Internet of
Things/Everything (IoT/IoE) and related areas, including connected and smart
solutions (smart home, smart city, smart energy, connected cars, wearables,
Industry 4.0), information security, big data, analytics, connectivity and
cloud computing.
Key elements of the
program are Acceleration Week (to be held June 22-26, 2015), which will be
sponsored by Cisco EIR, Intel®Business Challenge Europe and hub:raum, and a
tailor-made, 4-month incubation program (July to October) taking place in
Krakow, Berlin and Vienna supported by Cisco, Deutsche Telekom and Intel.
Startups selected for the program participate for free with no equity required and
keep their own intellectual property.
On his part, Corporate
Vice President and General Manager Europe, Middle East and Africa at Intel,
Christian Morales, said “We are looking forward to the creative ideas for new
products and services from across the region to improve how we live and work
together. By giving startups access to the complimentary resources of our three
global companies we can help them accelerate their ideas into commercial
success”.
Vice President of Data
& Analytics at Cisco, Mike Flannagan, added that “With an expected 50
billion things connected to the Internet by 2020, the Internet of Everything
opens up great opportunities. To help better address these opportunities,
Challenge Up! brings together the best of the technology world in an ecosystem
of open innovation”.
The program unites
resources and experience from the startup initiatives of the individual
companies, including Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence (Cisco EIR), Intel
Business Challenge Europe and hub: raum powered by Deutsche Telekom. Interested
startups can apply at www.challengeup.eu. The application period ends on May
25th.
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