After a successful launch year, the Aspiring Innovators Programme will once again take place at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Africa 2016. It will highlight interesting African startup technology companies who have something unique to offer enterprise organisations. The goal of this programme is to both support the African startup technology scene, and provide delegates access to innovative local technology providers.

Selected by Gartner research analysts, the startup companies have the opportunity to describe what they are doing in front of an audience who are looking for solutions and they are able to talk with senior IT decision-makers who visit their stands. At last year’s event, the six selected South African companies (Build, Clevva, Encentivize, Mapzania, Nandie, Wyzetalk) took advantage of the opportunity to build their brand and expand their early customer base. 

We are pleased to have MTN Business back for a second year as the corporate sponsor of the Aspiring Innovator Programme. The selected innovators will join MTN Business on the ITxpo show floor to show and discuss their products with Symposium delegates. We really appreciate the support given by MTN Business for this very important initiative.

The Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Africa 2016 will take place in Cape Town from 26 - 28 September 2016, with over 1100 CIOs and Senior IT Executives engaging with peers, Gartner analysts and industry leaders. Delegates will learn how to take advantage of digital opportunities to transform their organisations and evolve their own IT leadership to drive change and become central to the new digital business world.

Who can apply?

Gartner is looking for early-stage startups* that meet the following criteria:

• Your company is based in Africa

• Your company has fewer than 50 employees and less than R20 million revenue

• Your product or solution supports B2B or corporate B2C use cases (we are not looking for purely consumer products)

• Your product or solution is in production or beta, with at least two customers

• You were not chosen for any previous Aspiring Innovator Programmes

If you meet these criteria, you can apply by sending your contact details, a ‘company CV’ and a short description of why your product is innovative to aspiringInnovators@gartner.co.za by 26 February 2016.

* Subsidiaries of, or products developed by large companies are excluded, as are Gartner clients and prospects.