African startup takes home grand prize at 2019 Deeptech Oscars

After two days packed full of Deeptech innovation, Hello Tomorrow finally announced the 12 winners of their Global Challenge, worldwide startup competition for early-stage science and Deeptech entrepreneurs.

The Global Challenge Throughout the year, Hello Tomorrow partners with top universities, research labs, accelerators and incubators around the globe to find entrepreneurs at a very early-stage who are developing new scientific and technological solutions.

This year, the Global Challenge saw a record of 4,500 applications from 119 countries, indicating that the development of new technologies is more widespread than ever before.

“The variety of startup applications we received this year demonstrates that Deeptech innovation can come from anywhere in the world, and that it can provide solutions to many of the major challenges facing our society today,” said co-founder and co-Managing Director of Hello Tomorrow.

“At Hello Tomorrow, we are working to ensure that these startups have the right conditions to create large scale impact.”

RxAll Wins Hello Tomorrow Challenge for its Portable Drug Authenticator

RxAll, the Nigerian startup tackling the global problem of counterfeit drugs, received the €100,000 Global Challenge prize from BNP Paribas, Global Partner of Hello Tomorrow.

RxAll’s digital platform enables anyone to test the quality of their drugs using a portable nano scanner and mobile app. Their proprietary machine learning algorithm reads the scan from the nano scanner, identifies the drug and assesses its level of quality, records the test result against a blockchain ledger and returns the quality report to the mobile app in 20 seconds.

“It’s been a long journey, from nearly dying from a fake drug 15 years ago, to being with you here today,” said RxAll CEO Adebayo Alonge. “The solution that we have today means that nobody has to go through what I did.”

Fake medication is a $30 billion industry that poses significant risk to patients throughout the world, especially in developing nations.

In 2017, fake drugs were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide, and centralized regulatory oversight is often unable to keep up with the speed at which counterfeiters produce new drugs.



RxAll’s platform solves this problem by providing real-time drug authentication in the palm of your hand.

The journey to the Global Summit. The top 3 African startups, RxAll, Tambua Intelligent Diagnostics and Passerine Aircraft were shortlisted to live pitch head-to-head on the Arena stage on Friday 16th November, 2018, with RxAll eventually emerging as the overall best startup, taking home $5000 equity free cash prize, a chance to represent Africa on the global stage in Paris to compete for the 100, 000 Euro grand prize.

After a 3 mins pitch, RxAll wowed industry leaders and experts to emerge winners of the digital health track.

Each of the winners in the 12 tracks was given one minute to pitch. The tension on the competition stage was palpable. Eventually, RxAll was announced the winner of the grand prize.

Big Winners of the Night

Bound4Blue (Spain) received the “Aeronautics” Prize from Air France
KLM. Bound4blue is enabling a more efficient commercial shipping industry through its rigid wingsail system, which reduces fuel consumption and the environmental impact in everything from tankers to cargo vessels to fishing boats.

The wingsail technology is needed to maintain financial viability of the shipping industry while improving its environmental sustainability, and is to be used both in existing and new built vessels.

Insightness (Switzerland) received the “Data & Artificial Intelligence” Prize from Hello Tomorrow. Insightness develops highly efficient computer vision systems for the devices of tomorrow. Their primary market is mixed reality (MR), where they deliver one of the missing ingredients for its mass adoption: immersive interaction.

Their technology is to MR what the multi-touch screen is to the smartphone or the mouse is to the PC.

RxAll (Nigeria) has received the “Digital Health” Prize from WeHealth by
Servier. RxAll is a digital platform that enables anyone to test the quality of their drugs using a proprietary IoT nano scanner and mobile app. RxAll proprietary machine learning algorithm reads the scan from the IoT nano
scanner, identifies the drug and assesses its level of quality. It records the test result against a blockchain ledger and returns the quality report to the mobile app in 20 seconds.



Coreshell (USA) was awarded the “Energy” Prize from Air Liquide. Coreshell
Technologies is introducing novel thin-film coatings in lithium-ion batteries (LIB) to improve the energy density, safety, and ultimately the cost of energy storage.

Coreshell’s nanolayer electrode coatings solve the biggest problem area in both today’s batteries as well as in future ground-breaking chemistries by protecting against the degradation reactions that lead to capacity loss and thermal runaway.

In doing so, Coreshell hopes to be the key technology that enables lithium-ion batteries to flourish in today’s continuously electrified society.
Fauna Photonics (Denmark) received the “Food, Agriculture & Environment”
Prize from Invivo. Fauna Photonics is developing an intelligent sensor solution to map insects for the agriculture sector, helping farmers increase their yields while reducing their reliance on chemicals. Their intelligent sensor solution enables digital mapping of insect populations that assist farmers identify when and where to spray insecticides.

X-Therma Inc. (USA) was awarded the “Global Health” Prize from G4A Bayer. XTherma Inc. is solving major pain points in the storage of biological products using convergent biomimetic nanoscience. The company makes novel, highly advanced chemical technologies to solve the long-standing problem of cold storage and transport of biological cells, tissues, and organs. X-Therma enables critical biomanufacturing processes, safer transport and long-term biobanking for advanced cell therapies, in vitro fertilization, organ transplants, and other rapidly growing regenerative medicine areas.

Dust BioSolutions (Germany) was awarded the “Industrial Biotech” Prize
from DSM. Dust BioSolutions is creating biological binders for industrial applications with a focus on agriculture, infrastructure and mining. Their first product controls dust in the global mining industry, and their applications help established industries to increase sustainability, profitability and innovation.

Echoring (Germany) received the “Industry 4.0” Prize from Hello
Tomorrow. EchoRing™ is a ground-breaking wireless software technology designed for applications that require time-critical performance and high-robustness at the same time. Based on token passing and massive cooperation, EchoRing™ enables deterministic and real-time wireless communications (down to 1ms) with cable-like performance.



Soundskrit (Canada) received the “New Materials” Prize from Solvay &Solvay
Ventures. Soundskrit has designed a patent-protected microphone membrane that can separate and localize sounds coming from multiple directions all with a single microphone, without compromising on size or quality. The company’s patent-protected microphone membrane can separate and localize sounds coming from multiple directions all with a single microphone, without compromising on size or quality.

NiveauUp (Taiwan) received the “Mobility” Prize from Novares.NiveauUp is
enabling extreme fast charging LI-ion battery cells, making it possible for the battery cells to charge 10X faster, last 3X longer and weigh lighter as packs. Their technology can drop into the existing Li-ion batteries’ manufacturing ecosystem seamlessly and economically.

Atomos (USA) received the “New Space” Prize from ArianeWorks, ArianeGroup and CNES. Atomos is building spacecraft to move other spacecraft, precision-placing new orbital assets, recovering misplaced satellites, removing dead satellites, and opening access to deep space. Atomos is building a
fleet of spacecraft to move satellites and other assets between orbits and to other destinations using efficient electric propulsion. The vision is to become the logistics provider of the solar system.

Ilya Pharma (Sweden) received the “Wellbeing” award from L’Oréal. Ilya Pharma develops next-generation biologics to treat wounds in skin and mucous membranes.

Ilya Pharma’s therapies targets both acute and chronic wounds, which are especially problematic for people with diabetes. Ilya Pharma offers a more efficient and very cost effective treatment compared to treatment with conventional biological drugs, expected to enter the wound care market.