At Samsung, we are excited to be a founding member of the world’s largest start-up competition focused on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC). It is a platform for entrepreneurs, VCs, and corporations everywhere to connect with startups, enterprises, and investors to solve global challenges through innovation.
The theme of this year’s 2020 XTC competition was ‘Pitch for Hope’ – an apt theme as these startups are bringing hope to the world as we all navigate extremely uncertain times. With more than 2,400 startups applied from across 87 countries, 52 shortlisted startups were chosen from the initial pool of applicants, who pitched their solutions to a prestigious panel of more than 80 leading investors and industry experts.
On July 15, seven outstanding category winners of this year’s competition faced off in the Global Finals to determine the Global Winner of XTC 2020, as well as the COVID-19 Innovation Award and Female Founder Award. This event was livestreamed, bringing together startups, presenters, and a prestigious panel of judges from around the world. Watch a replay of the full show below:
Finalists in this event include:
- Genecis (Cleantech & Energy)
- Hala Systems (Enabling Technologies)
- MicroGen Biotech (Agtech, Food & Water)
- ReWire (Fintech)
- Saathi (Healthcare)
- SPRK.Global (Transportation & Smart Cities)
- TOMi.Digital (Education)
Judges include:
- Young Sohn, Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer, Samsung Electronics and Chairman of the Board, HARMAN; and Co-founder of XTC
- Jerry Yang, Founding Partner, AME Cloud Ventures, Co-Founder, Yahoo!
- Tim Draper, Founding Partner, Draper Associates
- Philippe Botteri, Partner, Accel
- Rafaèle Tordjman, Founder, Jeito Capital
- Bill Tai, Partner Emeritus, Charles River Ventures, and Co-founder of XTC.
To find more out more, and to get involved in the 2021 competition, visit the Extreme Tech Challenge here.