3 Kenyan Start-Ups wow Germany with their innovations in Insurance Technology and Smart City Design.
From 27th – 31st October, 2019, 54 Start-Ups from 20 countries have participated in the 2019 Start-Up Exposure Tour to Germany, including participating in the largest B2B start up conference in Germany, RuhrSummit in Bochum. From Kenya, three Start-ups participated including Bluewave-InsurTech, Bismart-InsurTech and Mobitech-Smartcity. This was made possible in the framework of the GIZ project Make-It and organized by AHK Eastern Africa who also supported them throughout the tour. During the tour, they, had the opportunity to meet with a multitude of other start-ups and corporates in their fields of operation with the aim of building collaboration and opportunities –and also to showcase and present their solutions to potential business partners and investors.
Start-ups on this trip had the opportunity to visit Düsseldorf, Cologne and the Ruhr Area (Dortmund, Essen, Bochum, Duisburg) and to interact with real innovative solutions in the fields of Insurance-Tech, Smart-City Design and Implementation, Logistics and Mobility. In addition, they were treated to a networking reception at TRIVAGO, one of the world’s largest hotel search engines. They also attended very informative sessions on setting up a business and scaling business in Germany. Furthermore, they also had the opportunity to meet with AXA Insurance, Signal Iduna, Insurelab Germany, Mitsubishi Electric Europe, Bayer and Metro AG, Evonik Industries, GS1 German Knowledge Centre. The Kenyan Start-Up Bluewave even made it all the way through to the finals of the pitch contest at Ruhrsummit – congratulations!
The aim of the trip was a chance to discover the ripe opportunities Europe's biggest economy has to offer to startups from all over the world, visit startup hotspots in Germany's industrial heartland, get in touch with companies and investors and meet hundreds of other startups, corporates and a variety of top speakers at the RuhrSummit.
The exposure tour was organized and implemented by the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), and the IHKs in Dortmund, Essen, Düsseldorf and Cologne. AHK Eastern Africa is proud to be a partner of this initiative and to work very closely with Tech Entrepreneurship Initiative of GIZ , Make-IT for their many initiatives in the Start-Up community in Kenya.