Cape Town-based music streaming startup NicheStreem has been selected to participate in the Washington DC-based PeaceTech Accelerator programme, which focuses on all aspects of scaling up, especially in the use of the cloud.
NicheStreem develops focused music streams, and launched its Liedjie service, dedicated entirely to Afrikaans music, in partnership with mobile communications service WeChat in December 2015. It recently secured funding from South African communications firm Media24.
It has now been accepted into the eight-week PeaceTech programme, which is a collaboration between C5, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and PeaceTech Lab, housed at the United States Institute of Peace.
The PeaceTech Accelerator has selected startups and non-profits working in peacetech, designing, developing, and deploying innovative technologies that promote peace and reduce violent conflict globally. It begins April 3 and runs until the end of May, concluding in a pitch day when participants will have the opportunity to pitch their companies to potential investors.
The programme is supported by an extensive network of international mentors. On completion, companies will enter a peer network that will provide ongoing support and guidance, while it is expected that each selected company will receive up to US$50,000 in AWS credits.
“We are delighted to welcome NicheStreem as part of our first cohort. We believe that music, the communities it fosters and the divides that it can bridge can help to bring about reconciliation in conflicted communities and regions. In this regard NicheStreem’s platform is an ideal peacetech solution and we welcome their participation in the program,” said Eva-Maria Dimitriadis, chief operating officer (COO) of C5 Accelerate.
The NicheStreem platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services’ cloud infrastructure. The company has adopted a micro services architecture as part of the core building blocks of its platform. The AWS SaaS services are fully utilised where possible to aid scalability, faster development agile cycles, redundancy and security.
“We see this as an invaluable opportunity to learn from experienced mentors and expand the NicheStreem offering internationally. The team and I are very excited and inspired by the prospect of harnessing our service to build a peacetech streaming solution for communities in need and look forward to what the future holds,” said NicheStreem founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Catherine Lückhoff.
