Tech4Democracy Asia at Raisina Dialogue during G20 in Delhi

The fourth Venture Day of IE University’s global initiative in partnership with the U.S. State Department took place in New Delhi on March 2.

On March 2, 2023, Asia-Pacific’s Tech4Democracy Challenge, co-organized by the Center for the Governance of Change at IE University and India’s top think-tank the Observer Research Foundation, was held in New Delhi in conjunction with the Raisina Dialogue, the main Asian event on geopolitics.

The Venture Day brought together entrepreneurs, policymakers, experts and investors to select the best tech startup in Asia-Pacific that is contributing to advance democratic values. Right2Vote, an Indian mobile-based voting platform that allows organizations to create and manage their own elections, received the award for the best startup in the region.

Tech4Democracy is a global initiative that aims to identify and encourage entrepreneurs developing democracy-affirming technologies. It is led by IE University in partnership with the U.S. State Department and with the strategic support of Microsoft, and is coordinated by IE’s Center for the Governance of Change.

At the opening of the event, the Director of the Center for the Governance of Change, Irene Blázquez, stressed that “Tech4Democracy aims at raising awareness on the importance of technologies that incorporate democratic values in their design, development and deployment.”

The event also counted with the participation of Anirban Sarma, Chair of the T20 Task Force at ORF; Graham Mayer, Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the US Embassy in New Delhi; and Ashutosh Chadha, Country Head Government Affairs & Public Policy at Microsoft India.

As part of the event’s award, Right2Vote secured their place at Tech4Democracy’s the Global Final in Washington, D.C. at the end of March on the sidelines of President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, where they will compete for a monetary prize.

The other startups competing were: Ringaze (Nepal), SafeToOpen (New Zealand), Smile (Singapore) and Suarise (Indonesia). All the finalists are awarded up to 150,000 USD in Microsoft cloud credits, free productivity software and GitHub Enterprise access and guidance from business and technical experts.

The competition was steered by a distinguished and diverse jury panel with leading members of the investor community in Asia, top academics, former government officials and executives from renowned organizations based in Australia, India, Singapore and Japan.

IE University will hold a new edition of Tech4Democracy on March 7 in Cape Town (South Africa), to select the African startup with the greatest potential in the development of technologies that consolidate democracy. At the end of March, a global final competition with the winners of the previous five continental challenges (Europe, South America, North America, Asia-Pacific and Africa) will take place in Washington, D.C. on the sidelines of President’s Biden second Summit for Democracy.

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