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Kazakhstani project Wipon has won the Startup Battle grand prize of 25,000 dollar at the TechConnect Astana technology conference, Tengrinews reports.
TechConnect, the biggest tech conference in Central Asia, was organized in Astana on November 12 as part of the Innovations Week and gathered investors, founders of startups, and visitors from Central Asia, Europe, CIS, and the United States. Out of 312 applicants, 10 best startups from Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan were chosen to participate in the Startup Battle final, 150 other startups received an opportunity to showcase their products at the conference. The main organizers of the event were the Ministry for Investments and Development of Kazakhstan, National Agency for Technological Development, Bolashak International Scholarship Association Fellows, Zerde National Holding, and international business accelerator Happy Farm.
The winning project Wipon is a platform that helps prevent forgery - it allows users to verify authenticity of products via a mobile application. The user can learn about authenticity and quality of the product by scanning its bar code or the unique code on the product’s package. Wipon is already collaborating with the State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan to detect counterfeit alcoholic beverages by scanning the excise tax stamp via the app. “All the scanned data containing information on the possible counterfeit goods is sent to the Committee in real time,” Wipon’s managing director Rustem Sultanmuradov says.
Wipon creators plan to spend the prize money to further develop the platform. In particular, the startup creators plan to extend the use of the application on online purchases and develop a system for tracking the movement of the original products from the producer to the consumer.
"People are not aware of the extent of counterfeiting. We cannot guarantee that the project will change the world, but we will provide every person, manufacturer and supervisory committee with a tool to fight fakes and counterfeits," Wipon developers said.
By Indira Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina
