Shiffer, a Syrian peer-to-peer shipping platform just won the first prize of Startup Roadshow competition at the Spark IGNITE Conference “Rebuilding Futures” held in Amsterdam on November 28th. Founded by Azhar Al Madani, a Syrian entrepreneur based in Iraq, Shiffer provides a solution for Syrians and refugees to send their documents with minimal cost and faster transit time.
The competition marks as the concluding phase of the Startup Roadshow – a competition for Syrian startups organized by Jusoor and SPARK, in collaboration with Startups Without Borders.
The competition marks as the concluding phase of the Startup Roadshow: A competition for Syrian startups, organized by Jusoor and SPARK, in collaboration with Startups Without Borders. It started last September where it toured around the Middle East and held a series of bootcamps across five different cities –Beirut, Erbil, Amman, Gaziantep, and Turkey– targeting Syrian entrepreneurs and providing them with training and mentorship to accelerate their ideas.
Yannick Du Pont, founder, and director of SPARK spoke about the competition saying: “There were 700 applications to the roadshow, which makes us think that this is really scalable. There is so much more that we can do to help these companies become successful.”
The second place was awarded to Fadfed, a HealthTech startup founded by Syrian entrepreneur Ibrahem Ahmed, which offers users access to mental health through a mobile app. On the other hand, Sharqi Shop, an e-commerce platform for Middle Eastern crafts founded by Saleem Najjar, was awarded the YAG Audience Prize, provided by the Young Advisory Group, a student-led advising firm in the Netherlands.
Dania Ismail, Board Member and Director of the Entrepreneurship Program at Jusoor said: “We are very proud of what the entrepreneurs were able to do in a massive stage, at the wonderfully organized Ignite conference.”
Since the first Startup Roadshow was a hit, Dania Ismail announced that there will be a second edition of the Startup Roadshow in 2019. So you better get your pitches ready!