Entrepreneurs get an opportunity to make an impact

The top contestants in Social Tech Start-up Challenge hosted by the Diageo Empowerment Trust had the opportunity to show off their business savvy.

The top 15 contestants presented their ideas on 28 November and the top five were then given the opportunity to pitch their ideas on stage.

The Social Tech Start-up Challenge is a 12-month incubation programme that gives young entrepreneurs the opportunity to create an impactful socially conscious business idea while enabling them to learn the in’s and out’s of the tech industry. The programme is its fourth year and was initiative by multinational beer and spirits producer Diageo SA.

The event saw the top 15, who were chosen out of a pool of 2 256 initial entrants, present their ideas to a plethora of business leaders in the room. The top five then pitched their ideas on the main stage to earn their share of R5 million in seed funding.

The programme was run by consultancy and start-up studio Urbian. Co-founder of Urbian Anton Moulder said, “There are a lot of incubators and start-up spaces. But the point of this challenge is looking at whether we can make money and do good.

“Programmes like this are amazing because we can get corporates involved in stimulating the economy… Another good thing is that many of these guys will never get the opportunity to go to Silicon Valley and create the next Airbnb. So what we did, is create programmes that assist in accelerating them.”

General manager of Diageo SA Sinethemba Mafanya said, “Each of these businesses now has a functioning prototype which is amazing. A lot of them were just sitting at work, thought of the idea and now they are able to focus primarily on this business, not only to fulfil their dream but to use their brainpower for the betterment of society as a whole.”

Mafanya added, “A business that is not plugged into the tech-space will become an obsolete business. So Diageo is very aware for it to be innovative in a massive company.”

Participant and founder of Skillshift Charl Daniels said the programme was an amazing experience that disrupted his year is a very good way and assisted with a great deal of information.

Founder of BallTalent Lesego Ndlovu said that the programme taught him invaluable lessons that he would not have been able to develop himself such as developing a product and the routes to follow in order to take a product to the market.

After the top five contestants gave their presentations, it was announced that market research firm iSpani made the biggest impression and received R2.5 million in the development of their business. The first runner-up was bursary and scholarship platform Foonda which received R2.1 million. Home security company Jonga received R200 000 while soccer scouting platform BallTalent and employment platform Skillshift both received R100 000.

Details: Diageo SA www.diageo.com

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