Georgian startups among top inventions at leading tech congress

Two Georgian technology startups finished among the top 10 projects from thousands of international initiatives at one of the largest mobile innovations event in Spain last week.

Startup projects TreePex and RehabGlove are two beneficiaries of the Georgian Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA): a Tbilisi-based organisation supporting innovative entrepreneurship for state and private sector entities.

From February 27-March 2, the two projects were among over 2,500 exhibitors at the Mobile World Congress that took place in Barcelona.

RehabGlove team presentation at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Photo: GITA.

Promoted as the "biggest and best mobile” event of this year, the global exhibition hosted over 100,000 visitors from more than 200 countries.

It allowed innovators around the world to showcase their tech projects for mobile platforms that contribute to education, health, commerce and other social and economic fields.

The list of exhibitors included two ideas by Georgian innovators that achieved distinction among the thousands of projects at the event.

The TreePex idea finished in top five of exhibited innovations at the congress. Photo: GITA.

TreePex, an initiative that enables citizens to engage in environmentally-friendly practices, finished fourth among the competition.

Plant a tree for your loved ones, for your baby or just offset emission and care for your planet. Users are directly planting trees with one click only from the web and mobile based platform”, said the creators’ description of the idea.

The other Georgian startup at the global event was RehabGlove, a project for an electric glove using Virtual Reality software to assist patients in recovering from stroke and physical trauma.

The glove tech applies "supportive forces on their fingers” to assist restoration of haptic ability.

Both startups had been part of GITA projects, receiving grants from the agency for prototyping their tech or participating in development programs.