Business News

WeQ4U wins European Tech Challenge Final

By Business & Finance
06 November 2015
EUXCEL weQ4U
Pictured (L-R): Giannis Pachos, Haydar Mahmoud and Stefan Rademacher of WeQ4U

WeQ4U has been announced as the 2015 winning start-up team at the EU-XCEL Challenge Final, which too place at University College Cork (UCC).

Young tech entrepreneurs from across Europe battled it out in the EU-XCEL Challenge Final, the final phase of a new four-month European Virtual Accelerator programme which supports the creation of new, innovative multi-national tech start-ups.

WeQ4U is led by a transnational team from Italy, Greece and Denmark with their platform that provides a solution to manage queues effortlessly, replacing physical queues with virtual ones.

The platform and app is currently being implemented in theme parks providing visitors with a better experience and plans are already underway to diversify its application.

Dr Brian O’Flaherty, programme director, EU-XCEL, said: “The international start-up teams shortlisted for the Challenge Final demonstrate the power of diverse multi-national ICT skilled European teams and there is a key lesson for Europe. This must become the norm and mechanisms that allow multi-national company formation, incubation mobility and European-wide entrepreneurship pathways will accelerate this.”

Runner-up was DataMine, a platform that streamlines data services and saves scientists time by using propriety conversion algorithms to provide data they require in a fast, clean and reliable way on a holistic platform.

Another finalist, CRAW.ly, is a SaaS platform targeted towards large corporate businesses that produce, manufacture and sell consumer products to wholesalers.

Haydar Mahmoud, WeQ4U, commented: “It is a huge opportunity that everyone should participate in because they really learn something that money can’t buy. The focus on team spirit, enjoying what you do and working hard is a great combination. The programme really gets you to push your boundaries and gets you working and thinking outside your comfort zone. Next we are about to talk to investors. I would never have believed this was possible just a few months ago.”

Dr Joe Bogue, programme director, EU-XCEL, added: “The innovative EU-XCEL programme will lead to a number of business start-ups in the tech area and has fast-tracked the experience based learning and international networking of high potential young ICT entrepreneurs.”