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• Applications open in Georgia for Visa Everywhere Initiative, a global innovation competition for fintech startups

  • Visa Everywhere Initiative tasks startups with solving today’s most pressing payments and commerce challenges, with monetary prizes, global exposure, and validation from one of the world’s most trusted brands

  Georgia, 20 April 2023: Applications are now open in Georgia for the 2023 edition of the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), a global open innovation competition that sees startups pitch their innovative solutions to solve tomorrow’s payment and commerce challenges.

  In addition to monetary prizes, VEI winners gain access and exposure to Visa’s vast networks of partners in the banking, merchant, VC, and government sectors. The winners also benefit from receiving recognition from one of the world’s most trusted and valuable brands.

  The Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) finals will be livestreamed on July 27 on TechCrunch – a leading online publisher focused on the tech industry and the startup ecosystem. The startup that wins at the CEMEA Regionals will participate in the global finale, which will be held on September 19 at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

  This year, Visa's VEI CEMEA is set to introduce for the first time an award in the Risk and Security domain - Fintechs Innovating in Risk Excellence, or ‘FIIRE’, Award. Through this Special Edition, Visa in partnership with Emirates NBD are scouting for global Fintech players across fraud management, cybersecurity, and credit risk, among others. Following a joint review by Visa and Emirates NBD representatives, the winning Fintech will receive a $25,000 prize and an opportunity to work with Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the region.

  “The Visa Everywhere Initiative is a platform that empowers fintechs and entrepreneurs to showcase the most ground-breaking, impactful solutions in the world of payments and commerce,” said Diana Kiguradze, Visa Regional Manager for the Caucasus “Through their technology-driven, innovative solutions, fintechs have the potential to offer broad social benefits to the markets they operate in – particularly when it comes to providing financial services to those who have traditionally been underserved. At Visa, we believe access to the digital economy drives equitable, inclusive growth, and VEI is an important means of supporting the innovators playing a leading role in this space.”

  Since its launch in 2015, VEI has helped startups representing more than 100 countries collectively raise more than $16 billion USD in funding, with a network that includes nearly 12,000 startups from across the globe. Last year, VEI awarded more than $530,000 USD in prize money over the course of the competition, which saw over 4,000 startups participate from five regions. VEI 2022 saw Nigeria’s ThriveAgric take home the VEI Global grand prize of $100,000 USD. ThriveAgric also won the $20,000 USD Visa Direct prize. In 2021, PAYZE of Georgia became the winner for the CEMEA region, for representing the best innovative payment and commerce solutions to solve the payment challenges of tomorrow.

  VEI is seeking innovative and ambitious entrepreneurs who are uplifting communities by solving payment and commerce challenges faced by businesses of all sizes and sectors, including:

  What we are looking for

  Enablers of digital services and digital issuers

  • Blockchain and cryptocurrency
  • Crowdfunding
  • Banking-as-a-Service
  • BIN sponsors
  • Issuer/processors
  • Program managers

  Digital issuance

  • Blockchain and cryptocurrency
  • Alternative lending
  • Personal financial management
  • Money transfer and remittance
  • Digital banking (aka neo banks)
  • Digital wallets, peer-to-peer (P2P) and transfers
  • Employee benefits
  • Payables
  • Corporate cards (aka expense management)

  Value-add for merchants and/or consumers in the finance space

  • Data and analytics
  • ID, authentication and security
  • InsurTech
  • Loyalty
  • Merchant services and tools
  • Process and payment infrastructure
  • Retail technology
  • Other

  Small- and medium-sized business recovery

  • Money movement (disbursements, Intra-account, P2P vendor and payments)
  • Acceptance (e-commerce and mobile acceptance)
  • Risk management (chargebacks, etc.)
  • Brand management (Community building, etc.)
  • Other

  New categories for 2023:

  • Sustainable fintechs
  • Risk
  • Urban mobility

  This year’s prizes

  • VEI CEMEA Regionals 1^st place: $20,000
  • VEI CEMEA Regionals Audience Favorites: $10,000
  • VEI CEMEA Regionals Risk Winner: $25,000

  Global Finals awards and cash prizes

  • VEI Global Overall Winner: $50,000 USD
  • VEI Global Audience Favorite: $10,000 USD
  • VEI Global – Visa Direct: $10,000 USD
  • Additionally, all 5 finalists will be able to exhibit their companies at the TechCrunch Disrupt in a branded pavilion in the Expo Hall.

   

  The overall winner and the Visa Direct winner are also eligible to win the Audience Favorite prize.

  The application deadline for VEI Georgia is May 14^th.

  For more information about VEI, please visit our website.  

   

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  About Visa

  Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating payments transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at visa.com.ge

• GLOBALink | China, Northern Ireland to boost cooperation on new energy

  Officials and experts from China and Northern Ireland on Tuesday expressed their desire to boost cooperation on new energy innovation, amid global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.

  Produced by Xinhua Global Service

• Government of Germany to Allocate €27 Million as Budget Support for Energy Sector Reform of Georgia

  The Agreement on Stabilizing the Economy by Supporting the Energy Sector Reform was signed today by and between Georgia and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW).
  Signatories of the document are H.E. Lasha Khutsishvili, Minister of Finance of Georgia and Birgit Holderied-Kreß, Director of KfW Office in Tbilisi.
  H.E. Ernst Peter Fischer, Ambassador Extraordimary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Germany to Georgia attended the event.
  The agreement envisages the implementation of Phase 5 of the Energy Sector Reform which provides support for the sector-specific initiatives planned by Government of Georgia. With this commitment, authorities of the country will continue strides towards using the full potential of renewable energy, energy efficiency and a market-driven power market.

• Meeting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan with the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of the UAE

  2022, in Astana, on the sidelines of the VI Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was held a meeting between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan R.Meredov and the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of the United Arab Emirates Suhail Al Mazrui. About this reports Press service of the MFA of Turkmenistan.

  During the meeting, the importance of contacts at a high level and the commitment of the parties to the consistent implementation of the reached agreements were noted.

  The parties also discussed issues of bilateral cooperation in the transport and logistics, trade, economic and investment fields.

  The parties expressed their readiness to intensify a fruitful dialogue in promising areas of bilateral cooperation, which are of mutual interest.

• 2022 Václav Havel Prize awarded to imprisoned Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza

  Strasbourg. The tenth Václav Havel Human Rights Prize – which honours outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights – has been awarded to imprisoned Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza.

  The 60,000-euro prize was presented at a special ceremony on the opening day of the autumn plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg.

  Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian politician, writer and historian. He is one of the opposition leaders in the Russian Federation, a consistent critic of the Russian government, and co-founder of the Russian Anti-War Committee established to oppose Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Mr Kara-Murza, who has faced two attempts to poison him, was arrested and jailed in April 2022 and has been charged with treason, as well as other charges, which could keep him behind bars for many years.

  Accepting the award on his behalf, Mr Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia said she “couldn’t be prouder” of her husband. She read out a statement by him in which he dedicated his win to the thousands of Russians who had voiced their opposition to the war in Ukraine, and pledged that “a peaceful, democratic and Putin-free Russia” would one day return to the Council of Europe.

  Presenting the award, PACE President Tiny Kox, who chaired the selection panel, said: “Despite the risks, Vladimir Kara-Murza had the courage to return to his country to continue his fight, even while having the possibility to stay safe. […] It takes incredible courage in today’s Russia to stand against the power in place. Today, Mr Kara-Murza is showing this courage, from his prison cell.”

  The two other shortlisted nominees were the Rainbow Coalition/Invalid Campaign for LGBTQIA+ rights, a coalition of human rights organisations, LGBTQIA+ rights groups and other civic movements in Hungary, and the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition, a group of Ukrainian human rights organisations whose aim is to uncover, document, collect and preserve evidence, while raising awareness of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the ongoing war. Both were awarded diplomas.

  The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize is awarded each year by PACE, in partnership with the Václav Havel Library and the Charta 77 Foundation, “to honour outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights in Europe and beyond”. It consists of a sum of 60,000 euros, a trophy and a diploma.

  Since its creation, the Prize has been awarded in turn to Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava (2021), Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain Alhathloul (2020), jointly to Ilham Tohti and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (2019), Oyub Titiev (2018), Murat Arslan (2017), Nadia Murad (2016), Ludmilla Alexeeva (2015), Anar Mammadli (2014) and Ales Bialiatski (2013).