Visa Europe Collab, Visa Europe’s international innovation hub has launched a startup competition for startups and entrepreneurs.
We want to find ideas for innovative payments products and services that will change the way people pay, with three innovation categories : Digital.Me, Data.Me and Group Payments, each designed to solve a problem that will make the payments process easier for consumers. Applicants are encouraged to submit their entries via the links below before the deadline on Sunday 9th August .
The six shortlisted ideas and an overall winner will be revealed at a live judging event in September at the Visa Europe Collab Tel Aviv office. Winners will be selected by The Accelerator Network and Visa Europe Collab from a list of finalists to be announced in August 2015. A separate Audience Choice prize will also be awarded to the finalist that receives the most audience votes.
Prizes include:
Visa Europe Collab will deliver a Proof of Concept for the winning idea, with full access to the Collab partners and The Accelerator Network to support its development.
Six finalists will receive access to Visa Europe Collab’s partners to help develop and evolve their ideas. The handful of shortlisted finalists will be rewarded with a trip to one of the largest and most rapidly expanding tech hub in the world, Tel Aviv. (Two people per finalist for a three night stay in Tel Aviv) An “audience favourite” will also be voted for on the judging night out of the final six. The selected entrant will have the opportunity to enter the Visa Europe Collab qualification process, with the potential to go through to Proof of Concept development.
– Flights to Tel Aviv from your home city on the morning of the 7th September, returning on the morning of the 10th September.
– Three nights bed and breakfast accommodation at the 4 star Royal Beach Resort from the 7 to 9 September inclusive.
– A reserved seat at the inaugural Visa Europe Innovation Exchange on the 9 September. (This exciting first for Visa Europe is a networking and pitching event targeting a wide variety of stakeholders, including members, startups, investors and retailers. Its a full day of pitching, round table and panelist discussions and will give tremendous networking capabilities and valuable insight into one of the most prominent tech scenes in the world)
– Additionally, one lucky overall winner will be given the opportunity to leverage the event platform and audience of up to 250 delegates for a three minute live on stage pitch.
– All shortlisted finalists will be invited to join the exclusive panelist and start up dinner to be held on the evening of the 9th September.
– Finally, the overall winner of the competition will be given the opportunity to tap into Visa Europe’s experience and networks to run a 100 day Proof of Concept on their idea with a team at Visa Europe Collab. We will engage with you throughout the PoC, where your concept will be fostered, filtered and finetuned to create a more complete concept.
This competition is an outstanding opportunity to leverage the Visa Europe connections and to take your concept to the next level.
Entry guidelines:
Entries must fall under the three innovation categories and will be judged based on level of innovation, proof of concept, and evidence of commercial interest.
The three categories are:
1. Digital.Me – Apply here
Does your startup technology address these challenges?
My problem is I get sick and tired of re-keying my data for everyone I engage with. I want a personal data store from which I can provide the data.
How can each of us keep our data private to us, under our care (or that of a trusted party that we designate either as a central store or federation of smaller stores as suits me) and allow access to it only when we want to? Do you share the ambition to change the time and hassle it takes to fill out forms endlessly with the same data?
Can your startup technology turn the real world content of paraphernalia in your wallet, the forms of identity that prove its you (such as your driver’s licence or passport or bank card) and the essential details of address/alternative addresses and contact details that the logistics of every shop or service you engage with requires. How can the data be collected? Do I have to key the data into a form? Can each of these sets of information be pulled in to a specific information set that I keep control of, from where it might already be stored or, during a on-line process (such as shopping online or emails I receive) can the data be replicated (at my discretion) in my data store? Can I scan a letter I received with relevant details (address, account number etc). What’s going to make this easy, trustworthy, secure and take less time than typing (or mistyping) my data into a web form? What will allow the data set(s) you look at to be mixed and matched with other data sets? How could organisations who already hold my data pass it to me if I make a request to them to do so, i.e. telling them that I want what they have on me (per EU legal requirements) and that if they want it they can “ask me” for it.
If your startup is addressing this challenge APPLY under the Digital.Me Category
2. Data.Me – Apply here
Does your startup technology address these challenges –
Imagine that I have my personal data details in my personal store (or stores); the problem I have is that I need to share it when I’m buying goods or signing up to services but I want to do this with control.
Show how you could package and push my personal data from my personal data store to sites with whom you need to register/”transact”. Devise a system using blockchain technology (or do you have something new that’s better?) that would allow me to push my data to online/web-connected services that request it? What will make that easy for any site or service to connect to and receive the data or allow me to pull my data from them? What features or facilities are going to make my data store consumer/user friendly through ease of use, least effort to me and something we can all trust?
Incorporate into the solution/system the means to allow me to pull my data held by a third party organisation back into my data store and control.
Much of the time such transactions will involve payment; how is that going to be made secure?
How can I manage the requests without being an administrator but be confident I control who has access to my data? You’d want to know (wouldn’t you?) who was making a request, why, when, whether to provide a single-use of on-going or time limited access to the data. So how does that work easily, simply, quickly?
If your startup is addressing this challenge APPLY under the Data.Me Category
3. Group Payments – Apply here
Does your startup technology address these challenges –
More frequently we group together to buy something; be it a holiday a present for granny or a leaving present for Annie from Customer Service. The problem is that it’s a pain. Someone has to organise it; invariably it ends up with someone paying and having the pain of chasing people down to get the money back.
Have you devised a solution to take this pain away? If so we would want to know –
Where does the money go? Once collection is organised where is it going to be stored? How are you going to make the money available to wherever the group wants it to go?
Once the money is stored what would the group want to know? Who has control of when and how it moves? Who needs to know and what would the group fear most and how do you prevent it?
If your startup is addressing this challenge APPLY under the Group Payments Category
If you have any questions regarding the Visa Collab Startup Competition please email info[at]theacceleratornetwork[dot]com
