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Bakcell and Wayra UK organized pitch day for local developers

Society Materials 5 May 2016 11:52 (UTC +04:00)
Bakcell, The First Mobile Operator and The Leading Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan
Bakcell and Wayra UK organized pitch day for local developers

Bakcell, The First Mobile Operator and The Leading Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan, has organized a pitch day for local developers collaborating with its Applab project.

11 project teams have presented their projects to Wayra UK, a start-up accelerator and part of Telefónica Open Future:

1. Flapus

2. QuizMindUp

3. BraillePad

4. Alkredit.az

5. FoodLook

6. Ustam

7. Spinal

8. Shrippy

9. Tradimum

10. MobChannel

11. Kvotter

Upon Wayra's recommendation, the developers will work on improvement of presented projects with the support of Applab acceleration program. In September, 2016 they will present their projects at the Wayra Academy in London and will gain an opportunity to receive investment from Wayra UK.

"We are pleased to see that developers working with AppLab attract attention of potential investors such as Wayra UK. One of Applab graduates has been announced as one of the 20 hottest start-ups in 2015 between 800 start-up ideas from 89 countries. Current time can be counted as the threshold of the bright future of start-up community in Azerbaijan. As national mobile operator we are proud to be part of this community and will continue doing our best to support local developers together with our valuable partners" said Fedja Hadzic, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer of Bakcell.

"It was heartening and encouraging seeing the quality of startups coming out of Azerbaijan; it's clearly an exciting place to be right now, in terms of telecommunications industry! Within the batch we saw, there were a number of tech-led businesses that have disruptive potential not only in the local market, but globally. The challenge now will be strong execution to make it a reality, however, as international collaboration, exemplified in the Wayra-Bakcell pitch day, continues to grow together with access to capital, the ecosystem shows real promise", says Mr. Harry Davies, Acceleration Programme Manager at Wayra UK.

Bakcell and Wayra UK started their cooperation at the end of 2015. The main purpose of this cooperation is to expose local projects to potential investors and supporters. Wayra UK is a start-up accelerator part of Telefónica Open Future, a global entrepreneurship and innovation network. Applab, Bakcell and Wayra UK provide opportunity to all young Azerbaijani developers and entrepreneurs to present and defend their ideas.

Launched in Ireland in September 2012, Wayra is part of Telefónica's global accelerator program for digital start-ups. There are currently 14 Wayra academies in 12 countries in Europe and Latin America. Wayra is aimed at early stage technology startups less than two years old working in spaces including cloud services, financial services, M2M, digital security, e-health, mobile applications, social networks and e-learning.

To join Applab community, young developers need to submit their ideas and register by visiting http://applab.bakcell.com/registration/ page.

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About Bakcell

Bakcell, The First Mobile Operator and the Leading Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan, offers a variety of products for modern mobile communications customers. Bakcell provides class leading 3G and 4G mobile internet experience in the country under the Sür@ brand name.

With more than 5300 base stations Bakcell's network covers more than 99% of the population and 93% of the land area of the country (excluding occupied territories). Bakcell is a leader in innovation and it focuses on bringing the best of the mobile internet to Azerbaijanis through new partnerships and its Sür@ services. Bakcell 3G service is available in all regions of Azerbaijan and covers 93% of population.

For more information about Bakcell products and services, please visit www.bakcell.com or call 555.For press releases please see www.bakcell.com/az/news (or www.bakcell.com/en/news for press releases in English).

If you are not a Bakcell subscriber, but wish to find out about Bakcell and its services, please call 055 000 05 55

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Wayra UK

Wayra UK gives direct funding and acceleration services (such as co-working space, connectivity services, mentoring, access to Wayra's network and knowhow, training in entrepreneurship and business skills) to selected start-ups. Wayra UK contributes circa $US50,000 as financial investment and another $US70,000 in acceleration services, or an equivalent amount in local currency, in exchange for an equity stake in the companies. Within four years of its launch, Wayra already owns a portfolio of over 500 operating companies, grouped in more than 20 digital industries. The funds contributed by Telefónica to Wayra start-ups exceed €18M, while third parties (public and private funds and angel investors) have contributed funding of over €61M to Wayra start-ups. The estimated valuation of all the companies in the portfolio is already over €500M. Wayra is part of Telefónica Open Future, the open programme that integrates the different initiatives of the whole Telefónica Group related to entrepreneurship and innovation.

www.wayra.co.uk

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Telefonica OpenFuture

Telefónica OpenFuture_ is Telefónica's global commitment to develop the talent and entrepreneurship, and since 2014 it coordinate all the groups of Telefónica's open innovation initiatives, projects and activities (Think Big, Talentum, crowdworking spaces, Wayra, Telefónica Ventures, Amerigo and CIP´s open innovation factory fund). Telefónica OpenFuture_ empowers, and invests in, technology-based people, projects and companies, in any stage of the lifecycle, in open fashion and in connection with private and public organizations. With an investment portfolio of more than 600 startups and offices in 17 countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia, Telefónica OpenFuture_ helps turn innovative ideas into successful businesses.

www.openfuture.org

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