The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.
Kenyan innovation ambassador, Alice Mueni joined global winners on Monday 26th at Tel Aviv Innovation festival for start-ups in Israel.
Ms Mueni represented Kenya, which is among 32 countries that are participating in the one week in the Digital Life Design (DLD) Tel Aviv Innovation Festival that kicked off yesterday in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The innovation festival, an annual competition which brings together leading start up founders from different countries, is a week-long global competition held by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality.
This marks the fifth annual competition which brought together 32 leading startups from around the world to take part in an intense, five-day startup experience in Tel Aviv.
Ms Alice Mueni, head of product at totohealth,, a social enterprise which aims to improve maternal health and reduce child mortality via mobile phones in the Kenya, is among the in attendance in the innovation festival.
The winners of the innovation festival were welcomed by mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai at city's municipality.
Mr Ron said: "The young entrepreneurs will visit workshops on the Israeli technology scene and will get an inside view of startups within the heart of Tel Aviv, as well as join meetups with highly respected high-tech professional and visit some of Israel's top Venture Capital companies that lie in the center of this growing tech-hub."
This year the competition celebrates women entrepreneurship around the world, and all the participants are women.
"This highlights another important aspect of Tel Aviv's startup scene: the city's ecosystem is a leader in gender equality and has been ranked the top hub for women entrepreneurs outside the United States," Mr Ron added.
According to the Compass report, Tel Aviv has 20 per cent women founders in startups, while the European average is 17 per cent.
On their first day, the winners visited Google campus for mums, a baby-friendly start-up school for new moms, run by Google in partnership with Yazamiyot, a networking group for Israeli women entrepreneurs.
In the campus, new mothers go through a nine sessions led by successful entrepreneurs, investors, technology experts and others.
Vice President, Engineering, Google and executive lead founder of Google campus Tel Aviv, a novel technology hub for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in Israel, Prof Yossi Matias said the sessions covered personal success stories, finance, legal and presentation skills, and tech knowledge, like cloud computing.
"The first course ended in June 2013. We arranged mattresses, bean bags and diaper-changing facilities so that the moms could take care of their young ones during the sessions. Four babies were born during the course and one new mum returned to the program less than a week after giving birth," he said.
At the end of the course, he added, participants presented their initiatives to venture capital funds and the course speakers.
"Their ideas are exciting; including a platform for teachers to create apps for their students, a fashion-tech meet up to encourage cooperation between local fashion-related start-ups, a 2G mobile e-commerce gateway for emerging markets and a bunch of other great initiatives," said Matias.
Winners from Kenya, Astonia, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Poland, Peru, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, United States, United States, Uruguay and Vietnam, attended the innovation festival.
join