Following its expansion into African soil by opening its Nairobi office; Hong Kong Venture Capitalist- Nest, partners with its Asian brother INFINITI (a Hong Kong based premium car division of Japan’s Nissan) to birth the Infinity Accelerator Program.

The 12- week accelerator program will see 8 startups from across the globe selected to travel to Hong Kong to accelerate their smart cities/ Internet of Things (IoT) businesses. This 3 month program will be of three stages. Month 1 connects startups with leading entrepreneurial mentors and professionals. Month 2 and Month 3 will be for product tuning; business development and preparation for pitching respectively.

This will not be the first incubator program coming from the stables of Nest as it has previously partnered with outfits like AIA to run corporate accelerator programmes. However, the Infinity Accelerator Programme is its own unique league with focus on helping startups with smart cities solutions scale and advance to the next level.

According to the President of Infiniti- Roland Krueger, by working with Nest and other innovative startups, the automaker is looking to collaborate further with urban developers on smart city ideas that can improve the quality of life for people.

Infinity President, Roland Krueger

Benefits of this accelerator programme include but not limited to:

• Mentorship in the areas of smart cities, hard ware, manufacturing, technology and transportation from seasoned experts provided by Infinity and Nest.
• Access to the Infinity and Nest innovation eco-systems.
• Opportunities to pitch business and seek funding and partnerships.
• Rich networking pool.

ELIGIBILITY:

• This programme is open to all startups from across the globe with an innovative smart cities/ Internet of Things propositions.
• Interested enterprise must present ideas geared towards smart energy, automated living, waste management, green tech, urban mobility, smart building and other IoT/ smart cities solutions.

During the accelerator programme, regular events promoting entrepreneurial innovation shall be open to startups.

Application closing date is 15th August, 2015. Successful participants will be notified 8th September, 2015 and the programme begins fully on the 15th September, 2015.

Interested? Click here.