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The Night Startup Crowd Dropped Their T-shirts and Jeans for Suit and Ties

One of the rare moments in the history of Yangon startups happened and the usual startup crowd traded their casual tees and jeans for an evening of red carpet in Phandeeyar. It was the night of the Rice Bowl Startups Myanmar where the winners will then be entered into the final of the ASEAN Rice Bowl Startups Awards.

The evening was filled with smart people roaming about in a space crowded event, the mood as triumphant as the country in it’s first 100 days journey with the newly elected government. Everyone is dressed up and ready to celebrate the strides taken so far both in community and the country. Rice bowl celebrates the entrepreneurship ecosystem by recognising not just the startups and the founders, but also the various stakeholders and cheerleaders of the community.

The country’s best startups and it’s who’s who have been nominated in advance before being presented to the panel of judges comprised of industry’s leaders. Kicking off the ceremony is Jes Kaliebe Petersen, the director of Phandeeyar Accelerator, spelling out their plans on it’s first batch of startups to be incubated and accelerated in the very space the event was held.

Dr Tun Thura Thet (CEO of Myanmar Information Technology, MIT), Ms Cindy Chaw Khin Khin (Group CEO of Myanma Computer Company), Ms Mon Mon Myat Thu (CEO of Ace Plus Solutions and Mr Thar Htet, CEO of Zwenexys Co. Ltd) together formed a gender balanced panel and presented awards to the Rice Bowl Myanmar winners and their runner ups. The winners will now become the nominated candidates for the ASEAN wide challenge in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Here are the winners, runner-ups and a brief description of each of them as following.

Best New Comer Award:
Winner: Melomap (song recognition app for Myanmar)
Runner-up: Peddle (an app based C2C marketplace)

Best Founder Award
Winner: Myint Kyaw Thu (co-founder of Total Gameplay Studio)
Runner-up: Ye Myat Min, (founder of Nex)

Best Startup Journalist
Winner: Catherine Trautwein (Myanmar Times)
Runner-up: Judith Balea (TechInAsia)

Best Campaign Award
Winner: Pansagar (Anti-hate speech campaign)
Runner-up: Mae Pay Soh (Let’s vote campaign for elections)

Best Startup Award
Winner: Oway (transport startup which managed to recently raise $10M)
Runner-up: Bindez (CarDB)

Developer of the Year
Winner: Htoo Myint Naung (Technomation)
Runner-up: Thuya Myo Nyunt (Bindez)

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