Tech incubator wins international recognition
NETWORK REPORTER
DURBAN’S small business technology incubator SmartXchange was awarded at the recent 2019 International Telecoms Union (ITU) World Telecoms Conference.
The incubator aims to provide enterprise development services to small, medium and micro enterprises in the media, information communication technology and electronics sector.
SmartXchange was named Global Challenge Winner 2019 – Ecosystem Best Practice.
The award was based on the pitch made by SmartXchange chief executive Jonathan Naidoo at the conference, which was titled “Smart Incubation Replication – Grows Innovation: SIR-GI”.
Participation came after the national communications department hosted the ITU World Telecoms Conference in South Africa last year.
SmartXchange participated in all the 2018 workshops and made contributions to strategic interventions.
Due to this participation, the technology incubator was recognised and Naidoo received an invitation to apply as an organisation of a best practice ecosystem.
SmartXchange was one of 10 global finalists at the 2019 conference which was held in Budapest, Hungary.
The conference was a partnership between International Telecoms Union (ITU) and INPUT Hungary.
“Being declared the winner recognises the efforts of SmartXchange as an organisation within an ecosystem that nurtures innovation through employing a multi-stakeholder approach,” Naidoo said.
Global Winners in the other categories were Startup Chile, Atlantico Brazil, Moldova IT Park, City of Summerside – Canada, Accra Digital Centre, Ministry of Communications and Transport of Mexico, Cysec SA – Switzerland, Romanian Business Leaders, Centre of Digital Innovation Telecommunications Regulatory Authority – UAE and Digital Innovation Telenor Pakistan.