After a tight competition, 30 of the most advanced innovative startups of 2019 were selected as semifinalists to continue on with the GIST Catalyst Pitch Competition.  

Remaining competitors will advance to the live semifinals of the GIST Catalyst pitch competition. The competition took place during the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in The Hague, Netherlands, June 3-5.  

The competitors who have made it to the semifinals will have the opportunity to elevate their pitch, showcase their startups on a global stage, and compete for over $600,000 USD in startup resources.   

To reach the live semifinals in The Hague, GIST Catalyst competitors had to advance through several rigorous stages of the competition. These stages included an initial application review to compete, creating a 90 second pitch video for their startup and placing among the top competitors following a global public vote. In order to qualify for the competition, all participants needed to already be attending the GES. 

The 30 startups that advance to the semifinals were chosen based on a combined score that took into account their performance during the public vote, their pitch video and feedback from expert judges who reviewed each of the over 75 startups that competed.   

There are six semifinalists for each of the five focus sectors of the GES, which are Energy, Health, Water, Connectivity/Infrastructure, and Food/Agriculture.  

During the GES, startup teams will give three-minute pitches, without slides, to a small panel of judges followed by two to three minutes of questions. 

At the end of the semifinals, these judges will pick a startup from each focus industry to compete in the finals where a top winner will be selected.  

Entrepreneurs will be competing for a variety prizes, such as $50,000 worth of Amazon Web Services credits, which can be used on tech training and cloud computing platforms. AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments. Stay tuned for details on more prizes competitors can win during the competition.  

The startups that have advanced to the GIST Catalyst semifinals cover a wide range of topics, from e-commerce to clean energy. Semifinalists in the competition are from several countries include The Netherlands and the United States. A list of the semifinal's competitors can be found below. 

 

The GIST Catalyst Semifinalists: 

Energy: 

Jose Antonio Avina – United States -- Sacramento Eco Fitness

Sacramento Eco Fitness aims to harness the human power at the gym to produce clean energy. 

 

Erika Boening – United States -- Accelerate Wind 

Accelerate Wind is developing a low-cost wind turbine for commercial building rooftops and distributed applications. 

 

Andrea Irarrazaval -- Chile – Clean Energy  

Clean Energy reduces CO2 emissions from industrial, petroleum and cements plants by using such emissions as raw material to produce a series of bio-products such as biomass, biofuels and bio fertilizers. 

 

Marjolein Helder – Dutch – Plant-e 

Plant-e's mission to provide a high-tech, nature-based solution by generating electricity with living plants. By using this technology, in addition to generating green electricity, we focus on reducing global methane emissions and treating waste water flows. 

 

Igor Zacek – Slovakia -- Nice Visions 

Nice Visions is focusing on creative strategies on how to fulfill basic human needs within the urban context and transition to zero-carbon future. They are developing new ways how to seamlessly integrate renewable energy sources in urban areas. 

 

Health: 

Christina York – United States – SpellBound 

SpellBound’s mission is to use immersive 3D technology to increase patient cooperation with treatment, including patient education and procedure simulation. SpellBound is now used as a tool in top hospitals across the United States as well as globally in countries like Kenya and Japan. 

 

Jackie Hind – United States -- Plumb Pharma 

Plumb Pharmaceuticals has developed a platform technology for the development of super-extended-release medications. 

 

Syed Abrar – Pakistan -- Azaad Health   

Azaad Health aism to disrupt the healthcare industry by fetching and aggregating individual’s health information from hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories and wearable fitness devices. This will let people view and monitor their and their loved one’s complete health at one place. Users can also securely share their health profile with other hospitals and doctors. 

 

Vena Ariell -- Benin -- Kea 

Kea, through Universal Medical-ID attached to a QR-code, aims to interconnect hospitals and different medical stakeholders through a single database in order to manage the whole patient medical information and therefore increase doctors’ efficiency. 

 

STENTiT -- Sol Cabrera -- Dutch

STENTiT developed a disruptive technological platform that shapes the first-of-its-kind regenerative stent. This unique product brings the best of two words by providing instant support to the diseased artery and simultaneously triggering vascular regeneration using the patient’s circulating blood cells. Made out of a fully biodegradable supportive porous structure, the regenerative stent will be the only device on the market that brings vascular regeneration to the patient without relying on invasive surgical procedures.

 

Jasper Van – Dutch -- LipoCoat  

LipoCoat is highly adaptable to many uses due to its ‘toolbox’ technology whereby distinct properties can be customized. With a range of formulations, its hydrophilicity, stability and lubricity can be adjusted to complement the inherent anti-biofouling and anti-thrombogenic nature of the coating. An additional asset of LipoCoat, due to its dynamic, fluid nature is the ability to self-repair should scratches expose the medical device to the biological environment. 

 

Water: 

Paige Peters – United States -- Rapid Radicals 

Rapid Radical’s technology is an advanced, high-rate wastewater treatment process that can meet or exceed local water quality standards in a treatment time of less than 35 minutes with a focus on eliminating sewer overflows for targeted end-of-pipe treatment during high-intensity precipitation events. 

 

Fadli Mustamin – Indonesia -- Poopook 

Poopook builds and operates an off-grid "human waste-to-fertilizer" treatment plant that is affordable and low maintenance. 

 

Andrej Krzan – Slovenia -- PlanetCare 

PlanetCare filter is a solution that can massively improve the quality or our waters and so far, the only built-in system that prevents the microfibers to be released into washing machine waste water and enter our environment. 

 

Katie Taylor – United States – Khethworks 

Khethworks we make efficient & portable solar-powered water pumps that enable smallholder farmers in India to cultivate year-round without being dependent on inconsistent monsoon rains or costly fuel based pumping. 

 

Connectivity/Inf​rastructure: 

Ray Abel – United States – Xogo 

Xogo is customizable hardware and software platform that cultivates access, inclusion, and social opportunity by enabling people of all abilities to connect to standard consumer tech in ways that work for them. 

 

Leyanis Diaz – United States -- Major Marketplace, L.L.C. 

Major Marketplace is an online marketplace for minority businesses and those who want to support them. 

 

Mendbayar Tseveen --  Mongolia – Shoppy 

Shoppy is an E-Commerce platform provider, /SAAS/ also we are leading E-Commerce in Mongolia. 

 

Mohammad Oli Ahad – Bangladesh -- Intelligent Machines 

Intelligent Machines aims to connect millions of street retailers (micro-merchants) in Asia who are 
out of coverage of important, necessary infrastructure and services. 

 

Daphne Tsevreni – Greece -- Clio Muse 

Clio Muse are self-guided audio tours for your smartphone for Greece's, Italy's & Amsterdam's main attractions such as The Acropolis Hill, Acropolis Museum & Colosseum. 

 

Pernille Skjødt -- Denmark – LinkAiders 

LinkAiders’s REACHI is a resilient information management system designed to generate overview within the first hours of disasters. The system enables communication from first responders to relief coordinators via wearable, disaster-proof, mesh devices, thereby efficiently accelerating need-based decision making. 

 

Food/Agriculture: 

Zoe Welz – United States -- Drovr 

Drovr are smart electric fences that maximize profit and land value for livestock farmers. 

 

Melisha Ghimire – Nepal -- Echo Innovators

Echo Innovators' FarmLi is an attempt to bring Livestock farming, machine learning, cloud computing, Internet of things and Artificial intelligence together to provide a better life for livestock and finally brighter future for the farmers, it consists of a neck band which is connected to our mobile application which continuously monitors the livestock’s temperature, behavior and activity readings and provides you the real time data.  

 

Olympia Yarger – Australia – Goterra  

Goterra manages food and effluent waste streams. 

 

Dessislava Dimitrova -- Bulgaria -- BIO Stopanstvo Lopyanko 

BIO Stopanstvo Lopyanko’s main objective is to establish an industrial plant of a circular economy type in Danube Region for organic silk production and further utilization of the waste products from primary production as high quality secondary raw materials.  

 

Peter Verstrate – Dutch -- Mosa Meat 

Mosa Meat unveiled the world’s first hamburger made by growing cow cells, rather than slaughtering an animal, in 2013. Now they are developing the first commercial products. Their mission is to produce real meat for the world’s growing population that is delicious, healthier, better for the environment, and kind to animals. 

 

Grand Champion will receive... 

$50,000 USD in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits 

$48,000 USD in IBM Cloud Computing Credits 

$50,000 USD in Google Cloud Computing Credits 

$12,000 USD in Microsoft Azure Credits 

Microsoft Office 365 and Visual Studio Enterprise one-year subscriptions. Two mentoring sessions for each of the teams with Microsoft engineers. 

Silicon Valley Bank mentoring session. 

Consumer Technology Association is proving a booth in Eureka Park at the CES.

Phillips is giving an opportunity to have automatic entry into the HealthWorks Startup Academy. This would entitle the winner to the following:
20 hours of coaching with one of the HealthWorks Program Directors
Access to experts within Philips, as appropriate.
Airfare and Accommodation costs for 2 co-founders to one of the HealthWorks Global Innovation Hubs for three days to engage with coaches and experts.
Potential access to HealthWorks clinical and investor ecosystem if appropriate.

And $5,000 USD.