Seven of the world’s most promising startups competed for the opportunity of a lifetime, pitching their business models to an international panel of judges. Teams from Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, Russia, the Philippines, Lebanon and Ghana’s BraveHearts Expeditions competed for the title of the first World StartUp Cup winner.

The judges voted Go-Fig Solutions as the Winner, a Pakistani company that has found a solution for the problem of terrorism by simulating and modeling suicide bombings for risk mitigation and planning. The 3rd Place slot went to Oriense of St Petersburg, Russia.

During the 5-minute pitching of their business model, BraveHearts Expeditions demonstrated communication excellence with a Power Point presentation that had the judges vibrating in tune with the inspiring background music that supported their great business concept which made no apologies for Greatness.

In clear and succinct language, they argued out how their experiential learning expeditions and adventure sports services contribute to providing economic opportunity for young people, while creating incentives to slow down the process of environmental degradation and providing communal incentives that preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Unlike their co-competitors who got barbecue-grilled by the brilliant judges, BraveHearts Expeditions’ Q&A Session with the judges after their presentation was characterized by long periods of silence in which judges could not find questions to ask, ostensibly because their presentation was complete, criteria-specific and comprehensible.

Shortly after the results were announced in Yerevan, Dziedzorm ‘JayJay’ Segbefia, Expedition Leader of BraveHearts Expeditions said, “We went into the competition to win, but we are happy with our 2nd Place position in the world and fully support the judges’ choice of Go-Fig as winner. We have enormous faith in the greatness of our business model, but even we were impressed with the mind-blowing solutions Go-Fig offers, and we are proud to have made it to the top three with them.”

BraveHearts Expeditions is an African adventure sports firm that runs camping, hiking, mountaineering, paragliding, cross-country safari and wilderness experiential learning expeditions for individuals and groups of all ages and nationalities in Ghana. The business is the first startup in Ghana to pursue a green economy where growth in entrepreneurial revenue is driven by business activities that reduce environmental degradation and pollution and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Working in teams, they develop strong relationships and active processes with their clients, which cultivate a culture of change in Africa and create a profitable, sustainable business that provides economic opportunity for young people.

As to their plans for the future, JayJay says, “We will employ all the lessons learnt from the competition to growing a successful adventure sports business everyone can be proud of. We’re about to make African adventure sports history, if we haven’t already, and would like all our potential investors to reposition themselves and support us now while we’re still young. We will grow rapidly, and we don’t want to say to them, “we told you so,” when the time comes to share the gold at the end of our rainbow and they are on the other side scratching their heads in amazement.”

Eligibility to enter the first World StartUp Cup consisted of first place winners in local StartUp Cups who held their award celebrations from January 1 through December 31, 2013. These startups represented some of the world’s most promising entrepreneurs, perfecting their business models during an intensive 6-7 month mentor driven acceleration program featuring business model competitions. The World StartUp Cup Seven Finalists were Go-Fig Solutions (Pakistan), BraveHearts Expeditions (Ghana), Oriense (St. Petersburg, Russia), Creato Tec (Alexandria, Egypt), L H Learning Group (Malaysia), Qwikwire (Philippines), and serVme (Lebanon).