Telecom firm Singapore Telecommunications yesterday announced the seven startups that will receive S$20,000 ($14,500) in funding when they join the company’s Future Makers incubator.
The startups were selected from a pool of more than 70 applications, which had been narrowed down to 12 finalists to compete in a pitch battle. Give.asia, a free charity-focused crowdfunding platform, also received a S$10,000 Community Chest Sustainable Giving Award.
The Future Makers initiative will last six months and offer workshops, mentorship and coaching support from Singtel and its partners. Singtel may commercialise certain products through its group and regional mobile associates.
Participants will additionally benefit from free access to co-working space provided by IMDA Labs. The incubator’s other partners include fundraising organisation Community Chest, welfare organisation SPD, Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise (Raise) and entrepreneur academy Unframed.
The selected companies all have a social impact mission and include Give.asia as well as online marketplace Bompipi, which donates some of its profit to charities and encourages users to volunteer by letting them collect points for their engagement that they can exchange for goods.
CaptionCube is working on a cloud-based speech recognition platform aimed at the hearing impaired, while Enabled offers empathy training through an app.
Irisada is developing a marketplace targeting special needs consumers. Jaga-Me matches healthcare professionals to patients within a community through a mobile app, while Medarwin’s technology automatically puts wet laundry outside when the sun shines and retracts the clothes when it rains.