The 2016 GIST Tech-I Competition offers young science and technology entrepreneurs an opportunity to compete for mentorship, training, and seed capital to advance their ventures. The top 30 applicants will be identified through expert review and global public voting, and will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Silicon Valley for the final round of the Tech-I Competition. Not only will finalists gain international visibility from pitching their ideas at GES 2016, but they will also be competing for at least $70,000 in seed capital. All finalists will also receive extensive training and mentoring before the GES, up to three months of mentorship after the GES, and a year’s membership to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The implementer for the GIST 2016 Tech-I Competition is AAAS, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C.
Application:
Applications for the 2016 GIST Tech-I Competition are being accepted from December 7 to January 28.
The 2015 Tech-I Competition will have two tracks for which S&T entrepreneurs can apply: the Idea Stage and the Startup Stage. The Idea Stage is targeted at entrepreneurs who have an idea or prototype but who have not launched their company. The Startup Stage is designed for new companies that are further along the growth process—for example, companies that have completed some market analysis, have a launch timeline or have recently launched a product/service for distribution, or have a realistic strategy to sell a product/service.
This year, the competition is seeking proposals from all areas of science and technology innovation (examples include: agriculture, education, energy, environment, health, information communication technologies/ICT, oceans, and space science).
Eligible Middle East countries:
Middle East countries eligible to participate in the GIST initiative are: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen
For more info please visit: http://www.gistnetwork.org/
U.S. citizens or permanent residents are not eligible to participate in the competition, applicants must be citizens of a GIST-eligible country, and must be between 18-40 years old on March 20, 2016.
