XTC announces finalists to global startup competition
Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) announces 80 startup finalists from 24 nations across 6 continents who are invited to participate in a virtual XTC Bootcamp this month with the opportunity to qualify for the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) Global Finals 2021 presented by TechCrunch on July 22, 2021.
The XTC 2021 Global Finals presented by TechCrunch is free to attend, open to the public, and will be held virtually on July 22, 2021. Register for the event to find out which startup is crowned Global Winner of XTC 2021 and to learn about what’s ahead for the upcoming 2022 competition.
Competition evaluators narrowed a field of over 3,700 applicants from 92 countries building tech startups addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). XTC participants are competing across seven category areas including Agtech, Food & Water; Cleantech and Energy; Education; Enabling Technologies; Fintech; Healthcare; and Transportation and Smart Cities. This year, XTC startups will also compete for one of three special awards: the Covid-19 Innovation Award, Female Founders Award and Ethical AI Award.
"We’re incredibly proud of this year’s 2021 XTC finalists who have stepped forward with incredible new technology innovations, precisely at a time when we’re facing such grave global challenges,” said Young Sohn, Co-Founder of Extreme Tech Challenge, Chairman of the Board at HARMAN International, and Former Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer at Samsung Electronics. “From solar bioengineering and carbon sequestration, to hyper-spectral earth imaging and environmental mapping, to autonomous exoskeletons that enable walking for the impaired, these entrepreneurs demonstrate the inspirational talent and dynamism that our competition seeks to empower."
All finalists will attend the virtual XTC Bootcamp, a weeklong intensive mentorship program that prepares them for the Category Finals pitch competition in late June, followed by the Global Finals in July. The public is invited to watch all 80 Finalists present in their categories from June 21-30, details to be published closer to the date on the Extreme Tech Challenge website.
This year, the public is invited to vote for their favorite startup finalist. The winner of the People's Choice Award will win a coveted spot and join the category winners and the special awards winner to pitch at the XTC 2021 Global Finals presented by TechCrunch, competing for the crown of XTC 2021 Global Winner.
The event will feature world-renowned executives and investors including XTC Co-founders Young Sohn and Bill Tai, Partner Emeritus at Charles River Ventures, Regina Dugan, President & CEO, Wellcome Leap and former Director of The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Lars Reger, CTO & Executive Vice President, NXP Semiconductors; Jerry Yang, Founding Partner, AME Cloud Ventures and Co-Founder & Former CEO, Yahoo!, and Michael Zeisser, Managing Partner, FMZ Ventures.