RideOn, which develops augmented reality (AR) technologies and products for sports and outdoor activities, has been selected to represent Israel in the grand Olympic startups final in Rio 2016. RideOn, which was founded by CEO Alon Getz and CTO Ori Kotek, overcame hundreds of other startups in the finals of the International Start-up Competition in Israel, which were held by HYPE and the Olympic Committee of Israel, with the support of Saucony.
Second place went to SpotOn, a video app for filming extreme sports and third place went to Chess Vision, which allows any chess player to transmit, share, and analyze their own game with the rest of the world. Ten Israeli startups competed in the regional final.
The judges refereeing the finals, held at the offices of the Olympic Committee of Israel, were: Dr. Gilad Weingarten, Head of scientific aresearch t HYPE and representatives of investment funds and private investors; Oren Bar-On, Senior partner in Ernst & Young Israel; CPA Eitan Barak, member of the Olympic Committee of Israeli and chairman of the Finance Committee; Teddy Nehmad, CEO of the CCapital investment firm; Tal Barnoach, owner of Disruptive Technologies Fund; Eran Wagner, managing partner at GEMINI venture capital fund; and Stephanie Cherin, investment manager at Deutsche Telekom.
In addition to the competition in Israel, seven other regional competitions will be held around the world: in the US (Denver and San Francisco June 7th and 15th), England (June 28th), Italy (May 31st), Greece (June 23rd), Kenya (June 30th) and Brazil (July 14th). The selected venture from each region will get to present its product in front of an international panel of judges, including: Avram Grant, former coach of Chelsea football club; Carlos Nuzman, President of the RIO 2016 Olympic Committee Organizing Committee; Yuval Brown, CEO of Saucony (IL); Mac Freeman, VP Denver Broncos (Super Bowl champion of 2016); and Daniel Brusilovsky, CIO of the NBA champion’s Golden State Warriors. The winning start-up will receive a grant of €100,000 from Tal Barnoach, owner of Disruptive Technologies Fund, and mentoring from high-tech giants like Google and Microsoft.
Towards the Rio Olympic Games, which commence on August 5th, HYPE Foundation, in cooperation with the Olympic Committee of Israel, launched this first unique project aimed at promoting technological initiatives in the field of sports around the world. The goal is to create the world's largest platform for groundbreaking innovation in sports, focusing on improvement and performance analysis, wearable accessories, transmissions, and connecting between fans and teams.
HYPE CEO Amir Rave said, "HYPE is honored to create the world's first platform for innovation in sports, a field which suffered from relative technological conservatism. I congratulate RideOn for winning first place and I am confident that they will represent Israel honorably in Rio 2016".
Olympic Committee of Israel chairman Gili Lustig said, "Proud to take part in this pioneering activity in Israel and around the world, promoting groundbreaking entrepreneurs in the field of innovation in sports, which will lead to international achievements. I hope the winning company representing Israel will return from Rio with a medal."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 29, 2016
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