Pawame, the UAE- and Kenya-based off-grid solar company focusing on Africa, has been selected as a finalist in the Payment and Fintech Technologies category for the 10th annual SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event. The SXSW Accelerator is the marquee event of South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference & Festivals (March 9-18, 2018) Startup & Tech Sectors Track, where leading startups from around the world showcase some of the most impressive technology innovations to a panel of hand-picked judges and a live audience. Out of the more than 600 companies that applied to present at SXSW Accelerator, Pawame was selected among the 50 finalists spanning 10 separate categories.
The two-day event will be held the first weekend of SXSW Conference & Festivals, Saturday, March 10 and Sunday, March 11, in Austin, USA. The Accelerator will feature finalists across the following 10 categories: Augmented & Virtual Reality, Enterprise & Smart Data, Entertainment & Content, Health & Wearables, Hyper-Connected Communities, Payment & FinTech, Security & Privacy, Social & Culture, Sports & Performance Data, and Transportation.
“Pawame is electrifying off-grid communities with our clean, affordable and distributed solar solutions, having changed the lives of over 20,000 people in just a year and a half. Our ability to provide consumer financing and use of mobile money for repayment enables us to serve even poor customers in frontier markets. Using the data collected from digital payments, we can create credit profiles for our customers, enabling us to deepen our financial relationship with them by offering them other life-enhancing products that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access or afford,” said Maurice Parets, CEO of Pawame.
“There are few bigger stages than SXSW to reach the financiers, partners and other supporters that we will need to be successful, and few with an audience as likely to be sensitized to the importance of what we are trying to achieve. The chance to be part of such a landmark cultural event and to compete alongside other amazing companies is icing on the cake,” he added.
“For the past decade, we’ve had the honor of offering a platform to some of the most cutting-edge global technologies and innovations – allowing CEOs and developers to present their solutions to investors, potential partners and key targets,” said SXSW Accelerator Event Producer Chris Valentine. “Of those who’ve presented on stage, over 70% have gone on to receive funding in excess of nearly $4.63 billion. In addition, 16% of these companies went on to be acquired. We look forward to once again being a launching pad for startups to achieve some of their greatest successes. All of us with SXSW Accelerator are proud and impressed by the companies who are truly changing industries and changing the world.”
For more information about SXSW Accelerator and to view the complete list of finalists, visit: http://www.sxsw.com/interactive/awards/accelerator.
