Sparkhub, Three years on.

Fast forward a couple of years later, and here we are reflecting on our three-year journey of helping establish a startup ecosystem in the Maldives.

2019 was the year we were able to ramp up our operations with new international events, partnerships, and community development activities.

Obviously, it is an understatement to say that 2020 did not go according to plan. The coronavirus pandemic made us trash our plans for 2020 and go back to the drawing board. The pandemic forced us to take a hard pivot on our plans for the year and reinvent ourselves and our operations to continue our work.

So what did we manage to get done?

Sparkchat

In 2018 we started “Spark Chat” as an informal fireside style physical event where we brought together people to talk about all things startups. In 2020 We converted the Spark Chat brand to a virtual live event and completed 3 events with 11 Panelists.

AngelHack

We initially kicked off the first AngelHack in 2018 in the Maldives. AngelHack is a global hackathon organization founded in 2011 in San Fransisco and has since expanded to over 150 cities worldwide. The winning teams from every city get the opportunity to join the AngelHack Virtual Accelerator Program, the HACKcelerator.

In 2019 in partnership with Dhiraagu and MMA, Thus far 94 participants and 20 teams have taken part in the AngelHack events in the Maldives.

Startup Grind X

Startup Grind X was introduced to the Maldives in 2018. Startup Grind is the largest independent startup community, actively educating, inspiring, and connecting more than 1,500,000 entrepreneurs in 450 cities. They nurture startup ecosystems in 120 countries through events, media, and
partnerships with organizations like Google for Entrepreneurs.

In addition to the Startup Grind X event held in 2019, a further 3 Startup Grind X Virtual events were held in 2020 with 6 panellists. Special #SGWomen editions of Startup Grind X Virtual was also held in partnership with Women in Tech Maldives.

Techstars Startup Weekend Maldives

This event was the genesis for Sparkub’s creation in 2017 when a group of community leaders, which included the four co-founders of Sparkhub, came together to bring the event to the Maldives for the first time.

The second general edition of Startup Weekend Maldives was organized by Sparkhub in 2019, with 46 participants, 11 teams, and over 30+ ideas pitched during the event.

Lean Startup Machine

It took the team over a year to bring Lean Startup Machine to the Maldives in partnership with Dhiraagu, Lean Startup Machine is a 3-day workshop that teaches how to build a product that the customers want and run the right experiments to steer their business in the right direction.

In 2019, there were 44 participants with 9 teams who participated in the event, and 35 ideas were pitched. In 2020 We went Virtual for Lean Startup machine for the first time in the Maldives. This event saw 50 participants and 20 workshops completed.

Seedstars Maldives

The Online Seedstars World Competition 2020/21 — Maldives Edition was organized by Sparkhub and Dhiraagu.

The Seedstars team looks for the most promising early-stage startups from 90+ emerging markets that will receive intensive training on how to be investment-ready. They participate in local, regional, and global stage competitions to compete for a grand prize of up to USD 500,000 in equity investment.

11 Startups applied in 2020 and msgowl.com was crowned the winner for the local event in 2020/21.

Startup Maldives Network

The Startup Network Maldives (SNM) was an initiative launched in 2019 by Sparkhub poised to be a platform to be the face of the startup ecosystem in the Maldives. SMN is developed to foster the development of the startup ecosystem in the Maldives, be a regional hub for innovation, and be the birthplace of many successful startup stories originating from the Maldives.

To date, we have 15 Registered startups in the network and a verified Viber community of over 500+ members.

The first event by SNM was the Huddle, a bi-annual informal gathering to celebrate the success and failures of the startups in the Maldives, a platform for founders to share their startup stories. In 2019 four startups used the platform to share their stories.

AWS Activate

AWS Activate is a free program that provides eligible startups with a host of benefits, including AWS credits, and AWS Support credits to help startups quickly get started on AWS and grow their business.

By partnering with AWS Activate Program as a participating organization, Sparkhub provided the opportunity for Maldivian startups to have free access for a limited time to a host of AWS services in the crucial early stages of their startup.

We were able to provide the AWS Activate Program benefits to 4 Startups in 2019 with a total value of $ 20,000 and 10 Startups in 2020 with a total value of $ 50,000

Any eligible Maldivian startups who wish to apply for the benefits can follow the instructions here.

Oracle for Startups

We organized a session in partnership with Oracle for Startups to familiarise the Maldivian Tech Community with the Oracle Cloud which is a rapidly growing cloud alternative for startups. This session gave the local tech community a chance to directly interact with the team at Oracle for Startups.

Impact of COVID-19 on Maldivian Startups Report

To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Maldivian startup ecosystem, Sparkhub conducted a survey in 2020, Startups from different stages of growth participated in the survey which revealed that the pandemic had a huge impact on the local ecosystem and has created a challenge for the survival of most startups in the Maldives.

One of the key challenges for Sparkhub for this survey was to define what a startup was as there was no common definition that was used in the Maldives.

What we settled on was:

“A Startup is an early stage company founded by one or more entrepreneurs to solve a pressing problem using innovation that results in a unique product or service which is either bootstrapped or funded through friends and family, which has a business model that would be scalable and has high growth potential”

Link to the full report here

Research, Networking and Relationship Building

Networking and relationship building is one of our pillars and over the years we spent a fair bit of time working on building networks locally and globally.

We continue to build links locally and globally to identify the best opportunities and commit to ensuring the best opportunities are available for Maldivian Startups.

We were able to visit MaGIC – the innovation and creativity centre of Malaysia to meet up with their team and understand how the government was working on developing the ecosystem in Malaysia and how the enablers like us could help such initiatives.

We envisioned setting up a co-working space in the Maldives & in 2019, we took a trip to KL, Malaysia (a fast-growing Startup Hub) & visited nearly 13 Coworking centres to learn & study how it works & operates. Upon return, we shared our findings & knowledge with others.

Last year In partnership with the Ministry of Communication, Science and Technology, we supported in gathering a pool of founders who fit into the criteria set out for the competition & organized a meeting with Microsoft for Startups as part of information dissemination for the Highway to a 100 unicorns competition.

We are thankful for many people and organizations that have supported us over the years. The mentors who volunteer their time at our events to inspire and educate our budding entrepreneurs, our partners who have stuck with us throughout the years, and most of all, the local and international startup community made up of wonderful people who make it all worthwhile.

We are extremely grateful for Dhiraagu, our steadfast primary partner in most of our endeavours. A very sincere thank you, and we look forward to continuing this partnership in the years to follow.

2021 holds exciting new challenges for us as we expand into new areas and products. Follow us for updates.

Full details are available at the link below: