64 tech startups from around the world came to D.C. this week to show their stuff and compete for hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment money as part of 1776's Challenge Festival. After a series of pitches to peers and judges on Saturday, the champions stood revealed. Smart city startup Handup walked away as grand champion, earning $150,000 investment. The San Francisco-based startup impressed both the judges and crowd with its platform to donate directly to a neighborhood's homeless or other needy people. Co-founder Rose Broome spoke passionately about how HandUp delivers all of its donations to the needy, providing food, medicine and housing to those who need it. HandUp relies on users also donating to support the company as well as corporate sponsors and nonprofits.
HandUp may have been the grand champion, but it wasn't the only winner that night. All of the other categories had a winner with an opportunity for $100,000 investment. Chicago-based Cancer IQ won the healthcare category for its platform to personalize cancer care using data and proprietary algorithms to to help doctors identify possible treatments and even help detect those at high risk beforehand. The Berlin-based startup PlugSurfing won the energy category for building an app to aggregate all the different companies with electric vehicle charging stations to make paying for a charge quick and easy compared to the around 100 different IDs that might be needed to charge a car anywhere in Europe. And in the education category, local startup eduCanon won for its innovative online learning platform for interactive video lessons. Teachers can use any video to time-link questions and break down videos into separate components, a program used by more than 20,000 teachers.
The audience at the finals also got a chance to pick a winner after hearing one minute pitches from all 64 companies. The kinetic charger maker myPower won that prize for its charger that turns the energy generated by movement into a charge for a phone or other portable electronics. The U.S. Institute of Peace, where the finals were held, also chose its own winner, awarding Khaya Power, a Cape Town-based startup looking to provide clean reliable energy to the poor with the Peace Tech Prize.
After the awards were handed out, the startups celebrated with a party IdeaSpace in an eclectic mix of company t-shirts and fancier attire. HandUp's Broome probably had the best accessory, sporting the golden cup she and her team had won. There's no question the week showed off some exciting ideas, a few of which now have real money behind them.
