“BDLAccelerate in Beirut has been one of the most outstanding experience of my last working life. I appreciate its reach from many points of view: on the one hand I lived in first person a groundbreaking business matching targeted on innovation; on the other hand I was able to compare an international startup environment with the European one I work in. Thanks to the efficient organization of this event, I bring home an increased network of private investors, as well as relationships linked to that international startup ecosystem I never experienced before in Italy. BDLAccelerate has been a great event: 1800 persons coming from all countries, two days of inspiring talks on startup ecosystem, a huge opportunity for me and my project. It was a pleasure being part of this, made me more confident in what I’m working for, onwards and upwards!”, with these words Karin Venneri Ceo and co-founder of 1000Italy described the experience she lived participating as speaker at the first edition of BDLAccelerate in Beirut, where Startubusiness acted as media partner. The event lasted two full days with a series of talks, panels, keynotes and showed on an International level how strong and full of potentials is the startup ecosystem in the region, specifically in Lebanon. Among the organizations that were present : the Central Bank of Lebanon Governor, the UK Ambassador in Lebanon that presented the UK-Lebanon new technology hub, some important venture capitalists such as Golden Gate, I/O Venture, and worldwide innovative companies like Uber and BlaBlaCar as long as Lebanese startups such as Instabeat and Shahiya that recenly announced to have been acquired by the Japanese group Cookpad (as Startupbusiness reported). During the BDLAccelerate also an interesting startup competition. Some of the participants were: Jobalist, a sort of Linkedin for the Middle East; Cardio Dignositcs, a device to monitorize heart; Zawarib, touristic guides both on paper and for mobile device actually available for Beirut and Istanbul; Feedeed, a professional services marketplace; Urbancraft a modular toy; Referd, a platform to help small businesses to develop new opportunites; Greenstudios, a mobile platfrom to manage, control and develop private gardens; Go ejaza, a platform to select and buy travels; Selfiesbox, a device for tradeshows and events to allow people to do selfies; Spectapp, an app that allows to load video and images when pointing the mobile device camera to a logo; Bitfeed, a platform to buy good at discounted prices; Saily, a markeplace where users can leverage on an algorithm that connect preferred goods and services and Myki that won the competition organized by SeedStarsWorld (at this link the complete list of the startups that participated) and is an innovative password manager. During the event was distribute an interesting pubblication namend Blueprints for success that describes a series of success stories, the main aspects of the startup worldwide ecosistem and what is still needed to make Lebonon even more competitive as it is now on the global scene also considering the powerful diaspora of Lebanese working in the innovation ecosystems around the world.
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