GEW South Africa is stronger than ever this year. Almost 150 events organized by 50 main partner organizations are taking place around the country during Global Entrepreneurship Week with hundreds of supporters and spokespeople.
South Africa’s @GoMetroApp was also recently selected as the regional winner of Get in the Ring and is taking part in the GITR finals in Rotterdam today. GoMetro is a data-driven transit app for city transportation that uses crowd sourced updates to improve city transportation. It currently operates in seven cities, with 160,000 users.
SEA Africa, one of GEW’s active partners in Johannesburg, hosted an annual meeting with some of the key stakeholders of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Johannesburg on Monday with the attendance of Hon. Tokozile Xasa, deputy minister of tourism, Happy Ralinala, head of Barclays Business Banking in South Africa, Gavin Mageni, SABS, as well as representatives from SAB Foundation, General Electrics, Shanduka Black Umbrellas, Sefa, IDC, Hookup Dinner and Tourvest. The main agenda items of the conversation included the launch of a formal chapter for Global Entrepreneurship Network as well as the bidding of South Africa for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in 2017.
According to recently introduced GEI Index, South Africa ranks first in Africa in terms of having an efficiency-driven economy. Botswana and Namibia follow South Africa in the continent. However, the worldwide ranking of the country is 52 out of 130. Some areas the index identifies South Africa as falling behind in are outlined as startup skills, human capital, risk capital, technology absorption and networking. On the other hand South Africa holds a very advanced position in terms of product and process innovation and competition as a high-growth economy.
According to Kizito Okechukwu, executive head of SEA Africa, the aim is “to achieve an ecosystem that can support the growth of businesses, provide a platform to unleash ideas as well as finding creative formulas for sustainable success” Sustainable Entrepreneur Accelerator (SEA) Africa Ltd is a research and development firm that supports entrepreneurs and businesses in different markets. He also cofounded the Centre for African Youth Entrepreneurship (CAYE), a non-profit continental organization initiated by SEA Africa to facilitate entrepreneurship, innovation and design thinking development among African youth aged 13-24. “Our aim with this program is to ensure that an entrepreneurial design mindset is activated at an early stage,” emphasizes Kizito Okechukwu.
GEW Johannesburg partners gathered together November 18 – 19, 2014 for the ‘Creating Sustainable Ecosystems for Entrepreneurial Growth” event at the Hyatt Hotel in Rosebank, Johannesburg in partnership with ABSA, SABS Design Institute, Sefa, Shanduka Black Umbrellas, SAB Foundation, IDC and CAYE. Over 250 established entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs as well as private and public partners joined the event.
During the opening speeches, Lindiwe Zulu, minister of small business, emphasized the importance of opportunity based entrepreneurship and stated that South Africa needs to open up to the rest of the world.
Ralina believes that they need to take the success of ABSA's Entrepreneurship Centers to rural South Africa. Absa (Barclays) aims to create and promote entrepreneurship to ultimately contribute towards job creation and scaling of startups. Its Enterprise Development unit has a greater vision, which also involves taking a view on new and existing clients.
Hosted by Endeavor South Africa, some of the other important key stakeholders of GEW South Africa include Innovation Hub (Startup South Africa), Siliconcape, Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, The Durban, The Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, NetworkKing Business Network, VC4Africa, The Hookup Dinner, Paradigm Shift and YE Young Entrepreneurs.
Some highlights from GEW South Africa
Talent International flew the six winners of its 2014 Talent Unleashed awards to the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg, South Africa for all-expenses paid, four-day entrepreneurship and networking workshop. At the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, the six Talent Unleashed award winners participated in sessions including ‘Discovering and living your passion through business’, ‘Innovating your passion’ and ‘Growing your customer base by sharing your passion’ with each session led by mentors and industry experts.
The Barn Khayelitsha Women’s Entrepreneur Day (WED) co-sponsored by WIB, is a women event that connected more than 150 of the Western Cape’s top female entrepreneurs, business leaders and media to share insights and best practices as part of a vibrant entrepreneurial community.
Startup Grind Cape Town hosted over 140 activities with the attendance of Madame Zingara, who emphasized the importance of a consistent work force for consistent products and revenues.
Entrepreneur Xpo also took place this week in Cape Town, with a concentration on insights and willingness to mentor and engage.
For those who are still looking into participating in GEW SA events running this weekend visit za.gew.co and the below highlights:
Make A R100 Challenge
The Allan Gray Orbis Foundation in partnership with Global Entrepreneurship Week has designed a campaign to encourage everyone to experience the possibilities of entrepreneurship.
The Make-A-R100 challenge seeks to get all South Africans to think about entrepreneurship in a non-intimidating way. This will help participants to see – through personal experience – that it’s possible to be entrepreneurial.
Everyone is therefore challenged to make a R100 profit (in an ethical and legal way) by providing a creative product or service to a willing buyer. To take up the challenge SIGN UP at CHANGE.ORG http://goo.gl/Kn7OW4 and follow three easy steps:
- Make a R100 profit
- Take a photo or video of it and share it on our Facebook page
- Challenge friends, neighbors, work colleagues and other organizations
The challenge ends on November 30, 2014
Startup Picnic
Startup Picnic is a fun day connecting entrepreneurs (current as well as aspiring) across different backgrounds so as to unwind, play games, have fun, make friends and tie relationships. It’s hosted by www.tiisetsomaloma.com blog on the November 22, 2014 at CSIR Sports & Recreation Club in Pretoria from 9 am till 8 pm.
Startup Picnic will attract various entrepreneurship activist persons and organizations: angel investors, venture capitalists and incubators. The breakfast talk guest speaker is Irfan Pardessi. Irfan is an avid entrepreneur born in Pakistan but now settled in South Africa, tech-startup investor, the CEO of ACM Gold, founder of traming.com and has business interests in other industries.
Festival of Entrepreneurship #FoE2014
The Festival of Entrepreneurship, produced by The Hookup Dinner and powered by Standard Bank, will be hosted in Johannesburg’s hub of entrepreneurship, The Maboneng Precinct, from November 16 – 24, 2014, in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The Festival is set to attract 5000 entrepreneurs, professionals and key public & private sector stakeholders to the Johannesburg inner city to participate in a range of workshops, pitching sessions, exhibitions and markets that will showcase the innovation taking place within the startup ecosystem. The theme for the GEW FoE emphasizes the importance of collaboration through creating a market place for entrepreneurs to access finance, information, markets and expertise. Multiple partners within FoE, including GEP, GIBS, Microsoft and many more, are committed to exposing entrepreneurs to opportunities through a fast track immersion in their enterprise and supplier development programs.
FoE promises to be more than a generic talk shop, highlighting not only the efforts of corporate South Africa in the development of the SMME sector, but also showcasing the works of entrepreneurs making waves in their industries.