11 project teams have presented their projects to Wayra UK, a start-up accelerator and part of Telefónica Open Future: 

1.Flapus 

2.QuizMindUp

3.BraillePad

4.Alkredit.az

5.FoodLook

6.Ustam

7.Spinal

8.Shrippy

9.Tradimum

10.MobChannel

11.Kvotter

Upon Wayra’s recommendation, the developers will work on improvement of presented projects with the support of Applab acceleration program. In September, 2016 they will present their projects at the Wayra Academy in London and will gain an opportunity to receive investment from Wayra UK.

"We are pleased to see that developers working with AppLab attract attention of potential investors such as Wayra UK. One of Applab graduates has been announced as one of the 20 hottest start-ups in 2015 between 800 start-up ideas from 89 countries. Current time can be counted as the threshold of the bright future of start-up community in Azerbaijan. As national mobile operator we are proud to be part of this community and will continue doing our best to support local developers together with our valuable partners” said Fedja Hadzic, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer of Bakcell.  

"It was heartening and encouraging seeing the quality of startups coming out of Azerbaijan; it’s clearly an exciting place to be right now, in terms of telecommunications industry! Within the batch we saw, there were a number of tech-led businesses that have disruptive potential not only in the local market, but globally. The challenge now will be strong execution to make it a reality, however, as international collaboration, exemplified in the Wayra-Bakcell pitch day, continues to grow together with access to capital, the ecosystem shows real promise”, says Mr. Harry Davies, Acceleration Programme Manager at Wayra UK.

Bakcell and Wayra UK started their cooperation at the end of 2015. The main purpose of this cooperation is to expose local projects to potential investors and supporters. Wayra UK is a start-up accelerator part of Telefónica Open Future, a global entrepreneurship and innovation network. Applab, Bakcell and Wayra UK provide opportunity to all young Azerbaijani developers and entrepreneurs to present and defend their ideas.

Launched in Ireland in September 2012, Wayra is part of Telefónica’s global accelerator program for digital start-ups. There are currently 14 Wayra academies in 12 countries in Europe and Latin America. Wayra is aimed at early stage technology startups less than two years old working in spaces including cloud services, financial services, M2M, digital security, e-health, mobile applications, social networks and e-learning. 

To join Applab community, young developers need to submit their ideas and register by visiting applab.bakcell.com/registration/ page.