In the search to find some of the best and brightest new startups around the world, Global Entrepreneurship Week recently announced the “GEW 50” —a list of the 50 most innovative new companies competing in the Startup Open, a competition that recognizes startups with high-growth potential. These elite ventures will now vie for the grand prize—an all-expenses-paid trip to Rio de Janeiro to serve as an official delegate to one of the world’s largest gatherings of startup champions, the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, in March 2013. 

Selected out of a field of nearly 400 applicants, the GEW 50 represent a range of industry sectors—from cleantech and life sciences to agriculture and transportation—and hail from 17 countries. The 50 were judged on concept, growth projections and knowledge of their industry. Each of the competing startups was required to have a “startup moment” between GEW 2011 and GEW 2012 (Nov. 22, 2011 to Nov. 18, 2012). A “startup moment” is anything that can be interpreted as the company is “open for business,” such as becoming incorporated, completing a first sale or securing outside funding.

“These new startups serve as models and inspirations to aspiring entrepreneurs worldwide who hope to unleash their ideas and start new companies,” said Jonathan Ortmans, president of Global Entrepreneurship Week. “Young companies need encouragement and recognition at the earliest stages. They are emerging heroes who will eventually generate jobs and economic growth for their communities.”

The 50 will now go through a second round of judging to select the overall winners, which will be announced on Monday, Nov. 12, the opening day of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

In addition to the trip to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Rio, the grand prize winner will also be featured in a Kauffman Foundation animated “sketchbook” video. Other winners will receive one year of mentoring from successful entrepreneurs, including Redbox founding member Michael DeLazzer, courtesy of the Entrepreneurs' Organization.

The 17 countries represented by the GEW 50 are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Ghana, Israel, Liberia, Mexico, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland, Slovakia and the United States.

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THE GEW 50

BITSYM-Smart Agriculture & Farms
Saad Qaisar
Pakistan

BITSYM-Smart Agriculture & Farms presents a smart solution to tackle the issues of water logging and salinity to help farmers around the world. Water logging and salinity are a major threat to agrarian lands, posing serious hazards to the farmers and countries where agriculture is the industrial and economic backbone by reducing availability of fertile lands for cultivation. According to an estimate, in Pakistan alone, about 40 percent of the cultivable land has become useless in past 50 years due to water logging while salinity robs 25 percent of the nation’s land potential of major crops. And since farming is Pakistan’s largest economic activity, threat to agriculture is not just serious — it’s grim and could result in emptying the country’s food basket. This problem is not specific to Pakistan. A majority of Africa and the Far East also suffer from these issues. On top of this challenge, most farmers use animals for farming, monitoring the animals’ health and real-time location while allowing the animals to graze freely and in a designated area. BITSYM addresses these issues by employing an intelligent irrigation and animal monitoring system based on a state-of-the-art sustainable wireless sensor network. Further, the wireless sensor network could be installed in crucial places to sense fire and raise an alarm. A database would be updated on monthly basis, helping farmers maintain a record for crop rotations. An online mentoring system using social networks and online forums would be provided to the farmers, where they could discuss various problems with experts and their peers, both nationally and internationally.

Bonuu!
Martin Romero
www.bonuu.com
Brazil

Bonuu! is an online loyalty system for small and medium businesses. It replaces traditional discount cards, which can’t be customized and aren’t sufficiently sticky, with a unique customer rewards program that reflects the culture of small and medium companies.

Charity Miles
Gene Gurkoff
www.charitymiles.org
USA (NY)

Charity Miles is a free iPhone/Android app that allows people to earn corporate sponsorships for charity by walking, running or biking. The app tracks the distance walked, run or biked and app users earn money for a selected charity up to an initial $1,000,000 sponsorship pool. Charity Miles aims to support the app — and increase the sponsorship pool — through corporate sponsors who will receive measurable returns on their marketing budgets. It also earns a profit from the spread between the marketing value it generates and the charitable contribution it spends to generate it.

Charlie Contacts
Junaid Kalmadi
www.trycharlie.com 
USA (PA)

Rock every important meeting, pitch, conference and phone call with Charlie, a mobile app that arms users with important information about a user’s contacts right when it’s needed. Sign up for an early beta - www.trycharlie.com.

CityHeroes
Daniel Ponce
www.cityhero.es
Chile

CityHeroes believes in better citizens, committed companies and safer cities. The organization tackles the enormous problem of public and private lack of safety. Combining web/mobile and hardware technologies, CityHeroes connects people with their closest circle of friends, colleagues and communities to report and solve daily issues as well as threatening situations. It is the Waze for personal issues. CityHeroes is a web and mobile app connected with a wireless device (hardware) where people can report, help to solve personal or collective issues and generate a rapid response alert. Based on people’s behavior, CityHeroes create a collaborative culture between people allowing them to face the problem before it scales saving money, time and lives.

CleanNG LLC
Matt Villarreal
www.gocleanng.com
USA (OK)

CleanNG is an innovator of advanced performance products for natural gas vehicles. The mission is to increase fuel range and efficiency of natural gas and hydrogen vehicle fuel systems. CleanNG’s first product is the MagmaCel Fuel Storage System, a next generation liner-less composite pressure vessel for onboard storage of natural gas and hydrogen fuels. The MagmaCel reduces the weight and size of the fuel storage system while increasing storage capacity.

CoFoundersLab
Shahab Kavaini
www.cofounderslab.com
USA (MD)

CoFoundersLab is an online matching system to discover entrepreneurs who are looking to join a Startup or are seeking a business partner to join them. Think eHarmony™ for entrepreneurs. Search for Co-Founders in a particular city, or post a profile to be discovered by entrepreneurs who could turn out to be a perfect match. CoFoundersLab also organizes free, in-person networking events called Meetups. These events happen every other month across the U.S. The organization has teamed with the top startup brands in each market. Thanks to thousands of members across 12 major cities, the meeting brings together entrepreneurs who’re looking to find a StartUp they can be a Co-Founder of as well as entrepreneurs searching for a Co-Founder to join them. Co-FoundersLab’s Blog provides insights and advice to help people find their business partner, set up a partnership in an equitable fashion, and ensure that the partnership lasts.

ConfPlus, Inc.
Cathy Liu
USA (WI)

ConfPlus provides a combination of mobile app and web service that transform the conference experience from simple attendance to real engagement. ConfPlus is passionate about utilizing technology to enrich the conference experience and enable all participants to get more value out of the event. All participants not only get a mobile app that delivers all the conference content and information, they can efficiently identify and discover targeted contacts and then establish connection before, during and after the conference. This solution can also help organizers build and maintain an active and long lasting community to expand the influence and exposure of their events.

Dropifi
Kamil Nabong
www.dropifi.com
Ghana

Dropifi provides a replacement for “contact us” buttons with a smart widget that allows companies to better analyze incoming messages, discover the real personalities and emotions behind messages and re-channel them to the right persons in their organizations based on business rules they set.

Electronic System Innovators
Steve Wrobel
www.electronicsysteminnovators.com
USA (OH)

Electronic System Innovators is a startup company that develops fun, interactive systems to help promote the green initiative for the retail industry.

Favour.it
Wouter Kneepkens
Netherlands

What’s next to read, play, see or do? Get a Favour.it from a friend and answer the question. Favour.it provides users a platform to publish, share and find their Favour.its and those of their friends and experts. Through Favour.it, users will discover cool stuff and make sure they’re never short of books to read, movies to see or games to play.

Folloyu
Alfred Shaffir
www.folloyu.com
Israel

Folloyu is a unique solution that increases online sales conversion rates and mobile presence by enabling website visitors to seamlessly transfer and continue their session on another device (i.e. start playing a game on your PC then switch to smartphone to the same spot in the game).

G3Box
Susanna Young
USA (AZ)

G3Box converts steel shipping containers into medical clinics. G3Box sells to companies/organizations that work on the social and economic frontlines (e.g., healthcare for developing countries, remote mining camps, firefighters) that often find they have the expertise and the equipment necessary to administer healthcare, but they do not have the medical space. G3Box provides a durable, semi-mobile, stand-alone facility that is ideal for remote environments, providing infrastructure in a box.

Gamer Deal
Javier Garrido
Chile

Innovation and simplicity. Those two words could convert a good business idea into an excellent one. Gamer Deal’s goal is to make the pro gamers’ tournaments more exciting for the everyday gamers and to create a community that can unite all of the online gamer communities.

Got You In
John Mark Eberhardt
USA (KY)

Got You In is a startup internet/mobile app business, launching in 2013. It is a niche appointment setting service developed for urban barbershop owners and their clients. Though several scheduling services exist, Got You In will provide a simple user-interface, and it will usher the urban barbershop industry into the digital age. Got You In provides appointment scheduling to a niche market — urban barbershops. Several vendors offer this service, but these providers target the masses while Got You In will focus on a niche market, which has yet to transition to the digital age. In addition to offering user-friendly scheduling solutions, Got You In will also transition the unique barbershop experience onto the web. The urban barbershop provides a unique social setting and experience. Though clients may not be scheduled for a haircut, they may still visit their local barber, and this is due to the unique cultural experience clients have, weekly, at their barbershop. Lastly, Got You In is a service to help shop owners increase their business through organization and mass marketing visibility.

GoVentureWorld.com
Mathew Georghiou
www.goventureworld.com
Canada

GoVenture World is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) that enables thousands or millions of players around the world to play the game simultaneously, competing and collaborating with each other in a global business competition. GoVenture World is virtual but the entrepreneurship experience is real. The objective of the game is to build a successful business, as defined by revenue, profitability, market share, brand value, stock price and more. To build a successful business, one must compete with businesses for resources and market share, while collaborating with other businesses to manufacture, acquire and sell products or services. More than an entrepreneurship simulation, GoVenture World is an entire business ecosystem. Players can choose to start manufacturing or retail businesses. They can choose to be lawyers, protecting intellectual property and mediating disputes. They can be marketers, helping companies promote their products and services. And, they can be investors, providing debt or equity financing to other businesses, or purchasing stock on the GoVenture World stock exchange. GoVenture World has the potential to be the single biggest innovation in the history of entrepreneurship education.

Hazmat Systems Inc.
Christian Danis
www.hazmatsystemsinc.com
Canada

Hazmat Systems Inc. is proud to introduce a new and revolutionary way to manage MSDS databases and health and safety information. This new system helps EHS managers take control of their databank, thus facilitating and expediting the transmission of this information to where it is truly needed: in the hands of employees. The solution comprises three distinct products, all working together to create the most innovative and complete health and safety information system available: 

• The web-based management system, through which EHS managers can easily manage their MSDS database and health and safety information, such as emergency procedures, safety documents, training videos and so much more;
• Revolutionary patent-pending SafeStation, a true health and safety information kiosk, providing user access to all the safety information and MSDSs directly in their work environment and literally right at their fingertips; and
• Web-based emergency services access, which provides firefighters and other emergency services rapid access to the database in case of an emergency even before they get onsite.

By providing quick and efficient tools, Hazmat Systems can help lower the overall costs of managing an MSDS database. By eliminating the need to go from binder to binder, site to site in order to update the MSDS sheets, users are able to greatly reduce the time and resources needed in keeping MSDSs up to date.

hipos.com
Ramon Estrada-Torrescano
www.hipos.com
Mexico

Hipos.com is a web portal that specializes in mortgage financing. It provides online tools in which rates can be simulated and compared, generating relevant information to enhance informed decisions, and that originates mortgages as a broker for our users.

Hyperfine
Bridget Osetinsky
USA (PA)

Hyperfine is a software company that will be creating and licensing the Data Isolating Research Tool (DIR), which will be offered in Basic and Professional versions. The DIR Tool aims at redefining the landscape of data search tools by introducing intelligence algorithms that will help in knowledge extraction from the data, be it the public data stores on the internet or the professional data warehouse maintained by a corporate sector. The Data Isolation Research Tool will help extend the horizon of search engine tools, which currently rely extensively on keyword search, by correlating the search query with the resulting data. The resulting search software will provide the end user with the complete picture of the resulting data set in a user-friendly manner, helping to carry an in-depth contextual analysis of the question and the possible answers. The user will also have the ability to view and modify significant factors/terms leading to a new question altogether or a significantly different answers pool. User’s involvement along with the novel algorithms implemented in DIR and the hardware computational advances will create a unique opportunity for Hyperfine to cater to a largely unaddressed market by modeling and presenting available data in such a way that will help see data correlation, its context and help find answer to questions in a more intuitive and computationally intensive manner.

Ikehu Natural, LLC
Holland Wood
www.ikehu.com
USA (HI)

Ikehu Natural is a Hawaii-based startup that is developing a software platform for electric utilities. The platform is a cloud-based service and a free mobile app for consumers. The service gives electric utilities the ability to offer airline miles as an incentive for responsible energy use.

Innovocracy.org
Martin Edic
www.innovocracy.org
USA (NY)

Innovocracy, a benefit corporation based in New York State, is a social funding platform created to rapidly commercialize innovation coming out of academic research. Innovocracy is building a network of leading research universities, as well as of individuals with an interest in sponsoring commercializable research, in order to efficiently identify and fund critical proof-of-concept activities and take the first steps toward building companies around university-based innovations.  Most of the products and services supported by Innovocracy create social benefit for society, such as those related to healthcare, sustainability, education and extreme affordability. Innovocracy's social funding site at www.innovocracy.org helps inventors raise money from donors with a personal or professional interest in the social benefits of those inventions. All the funds raised, except third-party credit card fees, go directly to the innovator while conforming to the unique requirements of each member university. In addition, Innovocracy offers to work with select innovators to facilitate the creation of startups to commercialize their research.

Jebbit, Inc.
Erin Cullen
USA (NJ)

Jebbit, Inc. is an interactive website that seeks to create an alternative platform for advertising to consumers, specifically college students. The company is based on being the most effective and efficient resource available to those who create advertisements and those who are viewing them. Jebbit wants to revitalize the advertising model, in order to be the future standard, one in which both parties benefit from advertising.

Kuznech
Pavel Cherkashin
www.cherkashin.ru
USA (CA)

Kuznech invented technology to find similar images among billions in real time by using visual context rather than text meta data. This technology will apply to e-commerce (search for similar products), social networks (find new friends with similar visual interests) and a wide range of other general search applications.

KWICKEYE
Gayathri Santhanam
USA (CA)

Kwickeye is a virtual wishlist with a social twist. The Kwickadd tool adds any item from any website to a wishlist. Friends/family instantly see what is added and can keep an eye on the products to surprise recipients on special occasions. The company aims to make giving and receiving gifts easy and fun. The company’s initial target market is moms with younger kids. The focus is to use Kwickeye as a solution for gift giving during kids’ birthday parties. Upon gaining traction in the mom market, Kwickeye will expand its marketing efforts to target holiday gift givers and young college kids.

learnmed
Tessa Davis
Australia

learnmed has been set up by three people who are passionate about innovation in healthcare, and who discovered a gap in the market to provide affordable, quality, online exam revision resources for junior doctors in Australia. The teaching resources will be in the form of webcasts for each topic within a course. For example, the first course is on image interpretation for the pediatric exams. Doctors will pay a subscription for a year’s access and will then be able to stream the webcasts (around 20 webcasts per course). All profits will be channeled into running pediatric first aid training with the Aboriginal community (a project which is supported by Aboriginal Medical Services) to help close the gap and improve the high rates of mortality through injury within this population. The program will start with one specific revision course — pediatrics. This specialty was chosen based on the founders’ knowledge of it (one of the directors is a pediatric doctor) and because there is only one other competitor in the market. The program will expand to other specialties and courses.

Likarda, LLC
Karthik Ramachandran
www.likarda.com
USA (KS)

Through the use of an innovative platform technology, Likarda streamlines the engineering of multi-cell type, uniform, organotypic 3D cell clusters. Likarda leverages its technology to target species-specific illnesses, allowing for development of new cell-based therapies for animals and humans alike.The platform can be used for a variety of applications including drug screening and regenerative medicine. The primary product that Likarda has developed are 3D islet cell clusters, Kanslets(tm), that provide superior performance. Kanslets can be transplanted into companion animals as a means to cure diabetes. Likarda has successfully cured rat diabetes by transplanting Kansletcell clusters into diabetic rats, and actively conducting studies on cats and dogs. Primary screening for new diabetes drugs is traditionally completed on flat monolayers of culture beta cells (the insulin-producing cells of the body), leading to poor prediction of how drugs will work in the body. Attempts to use native tissues for screening have fallen short due to inherent variations in the tissue. Our engineered clusters offer superior performance in these settings as well.

Lumos
David Vortman
Israel

Lumos brings affordable energy to 1.5 billion people in the off-grid world by providing a home power station in a box — a new type of solar system that allows users to purchase electricity on demand using their mobile phone. Lumos’ systems are designed specifically to overcome barriers of affordability, financeability and reach.

MamaBear App
Robyn Spoto
www.mamabearapp.com
USA (FL)

The MamaBear App is an easy-to-use parenting tool to tame anxiety when children are exploring the world without parents. The app allows parents to set up social media alerts like when their children make new friends online, are tagged in photos or use inappropriate language; driving alerts notify parents when their children exceed a set speed limit; and location alerts notify parents when their children leave school early or arrive late, visit locations deemed off-limits or leave a place their children were dropped-off. Or, parents can breathe a sigh of relief simply seeing where their children are at any moment. It’s worry-free parenting in the palm of one’s hands.

MEFIVER
Carly Giammona
signup.mefiver.com
USA (NC)

Denim has evolved into a timeless staple in modern wardrobes with the average American owning seven pairs of jeans. Yet, this beloved garment undergoes many chemical intensive washes to achieve desired denim looks. The denim industry has been criticized for its harmful impact on the environment and the human risks associated with the toxicity of the indigo dyeing process, garment distressing procedures, and tremendous water waste and pollution. MEFIVER creates the desired denim looks without any indigo dyes or garment distressing procedures, using a fraction of the water, chemistry, waste and energy. Harnessing truly sustainable textile, apparel and design technologies, MEFIVER has developed a proprietary process that aims to revolutionize the denim manufacturing process and rejuvenate the American textile industry. MEFIVER creates specialty denim and apparel informed by innovation, technology and artistic practice. The company’s design philosophy embraces creative exploration, technical craft and manipulation of new technology to bring something unique to the industry. By implementing cutting edge digital capabilities, MEFIVER is revolutionizing the denim industry while minimizing its carbon footprint and promoting sustainable practice. Aware of its impact, MEFIVER also makes the personal choice to maximize domestic contribution, to maintain high quality and to empower local partners. The distinctive aesthetic, digital innovation, and environmental and community awareness distinguish MEFIVER as a visionary, enlightened brand of the future.

Mercaris
Kellee James
USA (MD)

Mercaris is a subscription-based market data service and trading platform for organic, non-GMO and other certified agricultural commodities. It is a resource for all participants in the sustainable agriculture supply chain who need timely, accurate information on cash market prices, supply or demand data, or the ability to buy and sell the physical commodity.

Modulus
Charlie Key
www.modulus.io
USA (OH)

Modulus provides a place for individuals and companies to host, scale and gain insights into their Node.js applications. As a platform as a service (PAAS), Modulus eliminates the server and database administration challenges typically associated with deploying and growing an internet-based application. Applications can be deployed instantly and scale quickly with zero downtime. With a focus on detailed metrics and statistics, Modulus customers will gain unparalleled insights into their apps.

MOVE India Foundation
Sridhar Jagannathan
USA (CA)

MOVE India Foundation’s vision is to train 1 million school dropouts per year in India. India has a very high school dropout rate (almost 75 percent) leading to an illiterate, unskilled population of more than 300 million youth. This large population has no tangible education or occupational skill, leading to a lifetime of poverty and societal adversities. MOVE India Foundation seeks to provide vocational skills to this target group such that they can gainfully participate in India’s growth story, which desperately needs skilled carpenters, tailors, plumbers, etc.

neomatix
Assaf Murkes
Israel

Neomatix offers tire monitoring solutions for drivers and vehicle fleets.

Omnii Sense, LLC
David Burt
www.omniisense.com
Chile

Omnii Sense is the developer of intelligent wireless sensor systems. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., the company develops and markets monitoring solutions to a wide array of industries via its patented “smart” network technology, including the energy, health, security and environmental markets. Innovative research in heuristic and smart wireless communication networks and new sensor technologies has resulted in Omnii Sense technology that is unique in its capability to provide a platform for multiple “plug and play” sensing devices. This wireless platform integrates Geographical Information Systems (GIS), GPS, wireless communications, mobile computing and web-based capabilities to act as a monitoring, communication and reporting hub for its plug and play sensor technologies.

Placeknow.com
Kuzie Nhakaniso
www.placeknow.com
Poland

In an era of easy travel, people have a very real need to view any location in the world before they visit. They want to see what places they have read or heard about from the viewpoint of the people in that location. This is the space that Placeknow.com occupies. PlaceKnow.com seeks to be a meeting place for everyone to see and inform each other of locations they like or where they come from. The mission is to present an easy-to-use, informative and entertaining pictorial atlas of the world. PlaceKnow.com provides its users with the opportunity to make new friends, comment and share the best things to do within a location, providing a truly authentic view of the world they can experience from their PC, tablet or smart phone. Since its inception four months ago, users have uploaded more than 300,000 photographs from approximately 1,500 locations around world.

Qabila Media Productions
Perihan AbouZeid
www.qabila.tv
Egypt

Qabila is a media content creator that capitalizes on crowdsourcing and digital media to provide clients with cost-effective content that reaches their target audience, in the most engaging and effective way. It bridges the gap between entertainment and the intellectual need of the target audience; from promotional videos to mass media content, Qabila guarantees that a client’s message reaches the target audience effectively, by studying the audience behavior and adopting a crowdsourcing model that actively interacts and engages the audience to better understand them. Qabila has revolutionized the media production industry in Egypt with a business model that is innovative, effective and most importantly realistic.

Quest.to
Garrett Lauringson
www.quest.to
USA (CA)

Quest.to is a network of experiences that helps users have the experiences they want in their lifetimes. Users can easily organize lists and benefit from the knowledge of interactive communities of others sharing their experiences. Users can also discover new activities based on personal context. Quest.to will monetize by catering targeted offers (affiliate deals) based on a user’s intent shown on his or her lists — creating ads that users seek rather than avoid.

Renterra Inc.
Lyndon Lisitza
Canada

Renterra is a web-based platform that makes it easier for farmland owners to connect with farmland renters. Renterra has developed a Geographical Information System mapping system and web interface that allows farmers to identify and bid on available “for rent” farmland. Renterra solves several problems currently associated with the existing Western Canadian land rental system: lack of an adequate price discovery mechanism; lack of competition in the land rental process; and high levels of transaction costs.

Re-Nuble, Inc.
David Bidwell
USA (Washington, DC)

Re-Nuble is a social enterprise developing “community-sized” organic recycling facilities that use innovative clean technology to manufacture organic and all-natural fertilizer and soil amendments, and renewable energy within metropolitan areas. Food waste producers such as restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, and schools pay for the disposal of their pre-consumed, source separated food waste. Using clean technology, Re-Nuble then repurposes the organic waste at its facilities into renewable energy and sells the power to local utility companies and the soil products to local turf landscapers, lawn and garden, and agribusiness users.

REPP
Michael Bergman
www.myrepp.com
USA (OH)

REPP creates verified profiles, owned by the individual, to share with new people met through commerce, dating or networking sites. REPP provides identity and photo verification along with background checks that users verify. REPP profiles are embedded and shared, and users can request others provide their REPP profile.

Scrattch Ltd
Louise Donnelly-Davey
New Zealand

The massive amounts of data we consume each day on the internet is hard to keep track of. URLs get moved. Sites get archived. Important information is often lost amongst the noise. Scrattch takes the most important Internet findings and neatly and simply catalogues each piece of data into a user’s own personal library. Scrattch eliminates the noise and leaves only the message.

selfloops
Christian Del Rosso
www.selfloops.com
Italy

Selfloops is creating a tracking fitness and sensor platform for athletes and sport enthusiasts. The aim is to track and analyze the most important metrics during a training or a race to allow people to improve their performance. The service is being tested with the Italian National Cycling Federation and a pro Italian cycling team.

SlideIdea
Kristin Svensson
www.slideidea.com
China

SlideIdea is a new presentation tool especially designed for mobile devices. With SlideIdea one can create a presentation anywhere and then easily play it using tools that help the speaker convey the information. The unique features of SlideIdea are the sharing and interaction features that help the speaker and audience to communicate and get closer together through the use of mobile technology. The interaction features include a ballot function where the teacher can ask questions that the audience answer through their own mobile devices. There’s also a Q&A message board where the audience can send questions or comments to the teacher which he can see live on his pad during the presentation. SlideIdea is a tool that is suitable for business people, teachers, professors and conference speakers who hold presentations daily but are tired of the lack of technology and interaction. Frequent users of presentation tools are eager for some updated cool features that help them interact with their audience easier and more smoothly. 

Startup Heroes
Edward Junprung
USA (CA)

A start up for start ups. Startup Heroes is a platform to discover some of the coolest products on Earth. The goal is to allow early adopters to browse and evangelize impactful start ups, propelling them to change the world.

Startup Stock Exchange
Ian Haet
www.startupstockexchange.net
Netherlands Antilles

The Startup Stock Exchange provides a fully regulated stock exchange for startups and small businesses to connect directly with global investors. The platform creates a liquid market where these businesses can sell ownership shares directly to the investors and then those shares trade freely on the open market. StartupStockExchange.net beta launched in late June and has received more 70 company listing applications from 15 countries and registered investors from 21 countries. Final regulatory licenses are being completed and live trading is scheduled to begin in late 2012.

Tiatros Inc.
Kimberlie Cerrone
USA (CA)

Tiatros’ mission is to disrupt healthcare worldwide, becoming the collaborative platform for health and wellness in the 21st century. Pioneered in alliance with the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, Tiatros offers the first versatile, HIPAA-compliant health cloud that enables effective, cost-efficient healthcare services by connecting healthcare providers, patients and their families with real-time health data and complete patient records within a private, secure environment. Tiatros’ cloud-based solution is completely distinguished from the enterprise-based solutions that are already in widespread use, connecting providers within a single enterprise, often providing only a patient portal. Tiatros integrates hundreds of solutions that streamline clinic-to-clinic collaborative processes, drive operational efficiencies and lower the cost of delivering healthcare services. On Tiatros, healthcare providers in different clinical settings work together as collaborative care teams whose treatment decisions are coordinated and evidence-based. Patients and their families participate much more actively in their healthcare. Useful, real-time health data from many sources, e.g., medical devices and biosensors, can be collected, analyzed, correlated and displayed within Tiatros, so doctors can make faster, better informed treatment decisions. Patients’ complete medical records are secured within the Tiatros health cloud in seconds, including file types that have always been difficult and expensive to share, e.g., complete MRIs and ultrasounds. Everything is available immediately, and can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, on any Internet-enabled device. 

tripchi
Chandra Jacobs
www.tripchi.com
USA (MA)

tripchi is the mobile travel app for business travelers who want more out of their limited leisure time. tripchi provides business travelers with personalized and actionable things to do during those unanticipated and often awkward periods of down-time. Business travelers can make the most of the time in a new place, even when alone.

UbiquiShield
David Pensak
USA (DE)

There is an ever-growing need to protect both personnel and objects against fire, water and physical injury. While there are rigid materials which will do some of the above there have been no flexible materials. UbiquiShield is a new generation of textiles that is fireproof (up to 2000F), waterproof (but breathable to gasses) and is approximately the weight of silk. The fabric is attracting great interest from the military (for protecting troops against fireballs from IEDs); from the medical world as a way of protecting patients against fires in operating rooms; and by the construction industry to protect houses and buildings when their roofs catch on fire due to airborne embers or leaves/branches. It can be incorporated into concrete to protect the re-bar against corrosion due to water and defends against the fracturing of concrete in the case of fire.   It is being tested now as a material for lab coats and other hazardous occupations (it does not absorb any liquid and can not catch on fire). It is being tested in museums for protecting objects against water damage if sprinklers go off, and is also being tested as a portable, low-cost hyperbaric oxygen wound treatment system.

Work In Field
Richard Voda
www.workinfield.com
Slovakia

Workinfield.com is a free smartphone app and live web tracking service that helps small companies with mobile workforce to track work mileage, location and jobs. It helps to reduce costs, eliminate paperwork and improve productivity.

Young Farmer’s Resource Center
Junior Toe
Liberia

The Young Farmer’s Resource Center is an agro demonstration site created to provide agriculture vocational skills training to young people with no basic education. The training focuses on animals and poultry farming as well as seed and vegetable farming. The Center also provides sustainable resettlement opportunities for war-affected youth by providing a startup package and helping them locate lands for them to carry out their own farming activities through the help of local government, community leaders and family members. They will also use the land to establish their own home with support from the community and the use of local materials. The Center’s goal is to make farmers self-sustainable and also help in reuniting them with their family.

tags: featured, impact, Startup Open