On Saturday April 2018, the global startup competition Get in The Ring landed in Beirut during the SmartEx Exhibition. This unique competition challenges the startups to pitch their ideas in a 1-on -1 series of battles. The competition started with 5,000 contestants from 80 countries with 130 preliminary rounds around the world. The local winning startups will travel to Cascais, Portugal, to finally settle the score and crown the winners. Moderated by Speed@BDD and sponsored by touch, over 50 Lebanese startups applied to the competition, of which 6 startups were shortlisted to take up the challenge for the title fight, pitching their ideas to an audience comprised of 2000 investors, experts and media representatives. Dr. Nicolas Rouhana, IM Capital General Manager was invited to be a juror at Get in The Ring competition, along with Asmahan Zein, GM and founder of Crypta SAL, Priscilla Elora Sharuk, cofounder of Myki and pitching coach, Fadi Bizri, partner at BY VP, Abdallah Jabbour, managing director at Lebanon for Entrepreneurs (LFE), and Diala Zeinoun, corporate services team leader at touch, that they deserved a place on the podium. FabricAID, a second hand clothes collector & distributor won the first place, receiving a $2,500 cash prize and a spot in the Global Meetup in Portugal in May to represent Lebanon in the Middleweight class ($600,000-$3 million valuation). The first runner up, Spike, a Speed@BDD startup who is developing a mobile assistant that helps diabetics better manage their diabetes, won $1,500 while the second runner up, Sidelick, who recently launched an online platform that connects pet owners to pet lovers around them, received $1,000. For more info about the competition: http://getinthering.gribb.io/event/get-in-the-ring-beirut