Telefonica O2 Czech Republic, a.s. : Telefónica launches its Wayra accelerator and seeks…

• Wayra will offer working space, support and development financing to the best projects
• The best projects can get up to EUR 50,000 and access to 300 mln customers
• Interested parties will have a six week window to apply starting from December 13 th to the 21 st of January 2013
• The programme is designed to allow for applications from all over the world to any of our existing Wayra academies
• Wayra CR envisages to attract the most interest from startup communities in CZ and any neighbouring CEE countries.
• Prague isthe 13th Wayra academy to join the global network

The main aim of the new accelerator, Wayra, is to support innovative technological projects and help them succeed on the market. The Wayra project kicked off in 2011 in Latin America and has been rolled out across Europe this year. Besides Spain, UK, Ireland, and Germany, the programme is being launched in the Czech Republic officially today.

"I am excited to say that we are launching one of the few truly global incubator initiatives focused on the CEE region. We will support selected projects with funding, mentoring and training. Our unique differentiator is the potential access to our global base of 300 million fixed and mobile customers, says Felix Geyr, Telefónica Czech Republic's director for strategy and business development. "For us, Wayra's goal is to foster and nurture innovative digital ecosystems that will contribute to economic growth in Europe, create job opportunities and assist in transforming our industry. I am looking forward to the projects in the first round." Felix Geyr adds.

Wayra will accept applications from December 13, 2012. Interested parties may find the application and all other information on the project at http://wayra.org/en/joinus.

They will then have six weeks to prepare their projects and secure all necessary documents. Wayra will choose from projects focusing on following fields:

• video services and digital household
• cloud computing
• financial services
• big data
• advertising
• M2M
• security
• e-health
• e-commerce
• e-learning
• smart cities
• social innovations
• networks and systems
• mobile applications
• social networks and Internet applications

A pool of dedicated Wayra experts will subsequently pick the 20 most interesting projects that will be mentored throughout Wayra Week. There the chosen entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to work further on their projects and present them to a commission of experts, entrepreneurs and investors that will select the top ten final ideas. These will then be invited to join the Wayra Academy. The decisive factors will include primarily the future business potential, the underlying customer insight, the company strategy to compete, and the quality of the team. The selected projects will gain not only working space and support for further development, but also a subsidy of up to EUR 50,000 in exchange for a stake of 5-10% in the company.

About Wayra

Wayra is Telefónica Digital's program aimed to support innovations and search for talents in the segment of Internet and new information and communication technologies (ICT) in Latin America and Europe. The global accelerator helps the entrepreneurs with their development, providing them with the required technology, qualified advisors, inspiring work environment and financing necessary to facilitate fast growth.

Wayra is already active in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Ireland, UK and Germany, where it has received more than 13,000 applications in the field of digital technologies so far. This makes Wayra one of the leading global platforms seeking ITC talents. Wayra Academies in Bogota, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Lima, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Caracas, Munich, Dublin, Sao Paulo and Santiago de Chile now host 179 start-ups.

In March 2012 Telefónica announced its new strategy until 2015 - "Telefónica Think Big". Within the strategy, the operator promised to help with the development of business environment in Europe and boosting the accent on technologies. Wayra is very important for this new strategy, supporting the best technology start-ups. The start-ups are expected to play a key role in the stimulation of growth in future Europe.

Online / social media

• http://wayra.org/en/joinus
• Twitter: @wayracz
• Facebook: @wayraprague
• Telefónica Digital's website: www.telefonica.com/digital
• Twitter Telefónica Digital: @tefdigital

Contacts
Hany Farghali
Spokesperson
Telefónica Czech Republic, a.s.
public.relations.cz@o2.com
tel: +420 606 02 02 02

Telefónica Czech Republic is a major integrated operator in the Czech Republic. It is now operating almost eight million lines, both fixed and mobile, making it one of the world's leading providers of fully converged services. The organization offers the most comprehensive portfolio of voice and data services in this country. It is paying special attention to the exploitation of the growth potential, particularly in the data and Internet sector. Telefónica Czech Republic operates the largest fixed and mobile network including a 3rd generation network, CDMA (for data), and UMTS, enabling voice, data and video transmission. Telefónica Czech Republic launched a LTE (Long Term Evolution) 4rd generation mobile communication network as the first operator in the Czech Republic. The new network offers the fastest available mobile Internet nowadays. Telefónica Czech Republic is also a notable provider of ICT services.

Telefónica is one of the world's largest telecommunications operators by market capitalisation. Its activities are centred mainly on the fixed and mobile telephony businesses, while its broadband business is the key growth driver underpinning both. It operates in 25 countries and has a global customer base of 312 million. Telefónica's growth strategy is focused on the markets in which it has a strong foothold: Spain, Europe and Latin America. Telefónica is a 100% private sector company with its shares listed in Madrid and other stock exchanges and more than 1.5 million individual shareholders.