I took a left, it took a left, and my right was met by a pause from the big-eyed digital waitress who left a…
Top startup events in South Africa, Africa you should know about this week [16/11/2015]
Looking to get into the South African startup scene or scratch up on some of your skills? Well, you’ve come to the right place. There are loads of competitions, networking sessions and workshops happening around South Africa and the rest of the continent (namely Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana) that we’ve rounded up to make your life a bit easier.
This article is part of a weekly series that highlights all the top startup competitions, networking sessions, workshops and conferences around South Africa, and the greater region. If you have any event recommendations for us to add to the list, or next week’s, please let us know in the comments below or send us an email.
Given that it’s Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), South Africa isn’t holding back when it comes to a range of pitching events, match-making sessions and interesting competitions.
Cape Town
Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. The event is back in Cape Town this month, hosting UCT engineer graduate and founder of the Cape Epic, Kevin Vermaak. Besides the fireside chat, the event presents an opportunity to network.
To register for the event, follow this link.
Date: 16 November, 6:30pm to 9:30pm
Location: Townhouse Hotel, 60 Corporation Street, Cape Town
Anyone can set up an online shop!
Shopstar and PayFast are inviting anyone interested in setting up an online shop. The workshop is described as a quick, no-tech, hands-on, practical workshop on how to use the Shopstar platform and all its features, together with handy tips about online payments and your PayFast account.
Tickets for the event are free and you can find more information here.
Date: 17 November, 5pm to 7pm
Location: Twenty Fifty, 8 Spin Street, Cape Town
In celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week, a collaboration between Vigo, Amazon, Silicon Cape, Workshop17 and Standard Bank invite you to learn the basics of building a web-based startup. Some topics include building a go-to-market strategy for your web startup and bootstrapping versus funding.
The workshop is free to attend and you can register here.
Date: 20 November, 10am to 2pm
Location: Workshop17, V&A Waterfront, 17 Dock Road, Cape Town
Newtown Partners and Silicon Cape are hosting a startup event to feature a range of technical experts such as Vincent Maher from Kagiso Media and SweepSouth’s Alen Ribic. Importantly, Startup Match will be pairing technical co-founders or software engineers with 15 high-potential startups.
For more information on registration, click here.
Date: 23 November, 6pm
Location: Inner City Ideas Cartel, 71 Waterkant Street, Cape Town
Simon Gifford, CEO of Mashauri is visiting Cape Town from Europe and will be sharing his thoughts and experiences in an interactive lecture and workshop. Simon is the co-founder of Genesis Management Consulting, Mashauri Limited and Time-4-Goals and has been advising small and large organisations for more than 25 years.
Date: 19 November, 3pm to 5pm
Location: University of Cape Town — Leslie Social Science Building, 4C, Cape Town
This one’s for the early bird networker. Lean (startup) coffee is a weekly one-hour coffee meetup that runs a mash-up of leancoffee.org with theleanstartup.com — culminating in an agenda-less meeting which sets out to democratically generate topics and ideas.
The meetup is free to attend and you can register here.
Date: 18 November, 8:30am to 09:30am
Location: TRUTH Coffee, Somerset Road, Greenpoint
Alongside telecom conference AfricaCom, Ericsson AHUB will be taking place at the CTICC in Cape Town. Ericsson AHUB will showcase talent, facilitate partnerships and encourage investment and innovation, in a sector which has an abundance of ICT tech skills, but little industry support.
Click here for more information.
Date: 17 to 19 November
Location: CTICC, Cape Town
Polokwane
Oyara Global Entrepreneur Week
In celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week, Oyara Development Incorporated invites Limpopo to a one-day seminar to participate, exhibit, network and more importantly learn from Polokwane industry leaders on how they have turned their business around and be successful. Some of the topics to be discussed include Running a Business with Industry Experience, Women in Business, From Concept to Market, and Fundraising 101.
Tickets are going for R250. For more information click here.
Date: 20 November, 8:30am to 6pm
Location: Hayani Guesthouse, Plot 19, Palmietfontein, Polokwane
Johannesburg
Ampion Venture Bus kicks goes to Jozi
The Ampion Venture Bus is back on the road this year, touring through Southern Africa from 13 to 19 November.
Ampion is the leading pan-African entrepreneurship initiative that seeks to enable young Africans to start tech startups and creating considerable social and economic impact. The Venture Bus will be filled with mentors and startup founders who will travel across a total of 13 countries.
Ventureburn will be covering this specific leg of the tour as it rolls through Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Be sure to follow our Twitter account for all the updates.
For more info, follow this link.
Date: 16 November, 7pm to 10pm
Location: JoziHub, Johannesburg
The theme for TEDxJohannesburg 2015 is Moonshots. The event will feature a range of inspiring speakers, from artists to entrepreneurs and thinkers. Specifically, some exciting personalities to look forward to are tech entrepreneur Simon Bootsma, serial entrepreneur Ntuthuko Shezi, as well as former Mxit CEO Alan Knott-Craig and Alon Lits from Uber South Africa.
Standard tickets carry a price tag of R1 500, while students get a discount of R750. To register click here.
Date: 19 to 20 November
Location: Soweto Theatre & Turbine Hall
Effeminacy Women’s Entrepreneurship Breakfast
Effeminacy is a Woman’s Entrepreneurship Breakfast that is specifically for women by women dealing with the stereotypes and uncomfortable environment that is business. The day will be filled with forum discussions as well as guest presentations on a range of relevant themes.
Register for the free event here.
Date: 21 November, 10am to 1pm
Location: OPEN collaborative City Workspaces, The Mainchange Building, Corner Main and Kruger street, Maboneng precinct
House of the Future conference
House of the Future is a five-day event revolving around the question: how can we #cocreateSA? The programme is filled with workshops, seminars, presentations and round tables, hosting South African and Dutch stakeholders. The event showcases a host of innovative speakers from a range of local industries.
For more details, click here.
Date: 16 to 20 November
Location: Turbine Hall, 65 Ntemi Piliso Street, Johannesburg
International startup accelerator PortXL is looking for startups related to transport & logistics, energy, chemicals & refinery and maritime. As part of its recruitment process, PortXl is visiting South Africa to scout relevant startups and see whether they are interested to join an entrepreneurial journey in Europe. Successful startup will stand a chance to join the intensive three-month accelerator programme in Europe.
Follow this link for more info.
Date: 16 to 17 November
Location: Turbine Hall, 65 Ntemi Piliso Street, Johannesburg
The networking event will focus on building long-term business relationships through word-of-mouth referrals. The organisers are looking for professionals in selected industries so that attendants can tap into one another’s networks.
The event comes with a price tag of US$75 and you can register here.
Date: 18 November, 07:00am to 08:30am
Location: Cafe Dolce Vita — Shop 20, BluBird Shopping Centre
More events from around the continent
If there are any other interesting and productive occasions you’d like us to add to this list, please let us know in the comments below or send us an email.
Lagos
Woman’s Entrepreneurship Breakfast
WOWe aims to spread knowledge about women entrepreneurs in West Africa. It creates an opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs to meet female entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs and learn practical business tips from them which could help them transform their businesses and realise their entrepreneurial ambitions.
For more information, follow this link.
Date: 19 November, 10am to 2pm
Location: Oriental Hotel, Lagos
Accra
How to Start a Startup in Accra
The event will gather representatives from different entrepreneurial organisations to give a quick overview of who their audience is, and then host a panel moderated by a top local journalist to discuss the startup ecosystem and the opportunities available.
For more info, click here.
Date: 18 November, 6:30pm
Location: iSpace Foundation, F618/2 Anumansa, Lock Streets, 146 East X’Borg Estates, Accra
Nairobi
How to Start a Startup in Nairobi
Hosted by local accelerator Founder Institute, the event will gather representatives from different entrepreneurial organisations to give participants insight into the startup ecosystem and the opportunities available.
Date: 18 November, 06:30pm
Location: Nailab, Bishop Magua Centre, Nairobi
