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.
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Cape Town
This week the Mother City will be the host of a range of technical workshops and thought leader sessions, all of which startups and budding entrepreneurs could easily tap into.
Accelerate Cape Town: Thought Leader
This thought leader session is running with the theme Africa’s Pharma R&D and Healthtech Hub. Join Paul Herrling, chairman of the board of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases in Singapore, on what they did to successfully attract foreign direct investment. Also at the event is Craig Landsberg of Wesgro, and Project Manager of the Cape Health Technology Park, on what is being planned and the opportunities for business. Kelly Chibale, the Founder of UCT Drug Discovery & Development Centre (H3-D) will also share insights into current global interest and opportunities arising from Africa’s growth in this sector.
For more information click here.
Date: 12 November, 8am to 10am
Location: PwC, No. 1 Waterhouse Place, Century Blvd, Century City
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. There’s also another Lean Coffee meeting happening on Thursday.
Date: 11 November, 8:30am to 09:30am
Location: TRUTH Coffee, Somerset Road, Greenpoint
Workshop17 hosts a bunch of events for startup founders and developers alike. This networking and workshop event invites you to write code together and show each other code.
Date: 12 November, 12:00pm to 2:00pm
Location: Workshop17, The Watershed
Small Business Startups@SORTED — Networking
Small Business Startups@SORTED aims to connect people with others who are establishing themselves.
Any startup looking to make it out in the dog-eat-dog world of business needs sales skills. For this session taking place at A Touch of Madness, participants will be able to network.
For more information on how to register, click here.
Date: 12 November, 6:00pm to 8:30pm
Location: A Touch of Madness, Observatory
This one is interesting. The Mastermind Anonymous Meetup is a series of bi-weekly sessions which allows you to submit ideas anonymously before the event, to be discussed in a think tank type of scenario. You can decide to take ownership of your idea during the Meetup or you can remain anonymous.
Click here for more info.
Date: 12 November, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Location: Daddy.O workspace, The Old Biscuit Mill
Technical Girls’ Night Cape Town
If you’re keen to scratch up your tech skills, be sure to join this two-hour technical event focusing on Cloud, DevOps and IBM Bluemix. The speaker of the event is Indran Naick, IBM CTO for the Middle East & Africa.
Find out about the details here.
Date: 10 November, 6:00pm
Location: CodeX, Workshop17, the Watershed
Johannesburg
Networking, networking and networking. Similar to last week, this seems to be the overarching theme of Jozi this week.
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: 11 November, 07:00am to 08:30am
Location: Cafe Dolce Vita — Shop 20, BluBird Shopping Centre
Entrepreneurs Anonymous is described as a monthly social meetup for you to meet and learn about other people’s business interests. It’s fairly informal with the emphasis on social with plenty of networking opportunities.
To register, click here.
Date: 11 November, 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Location: Piccolinos Fourways
More events from around the continent
If you’re one of the continent’s jet-setting entrepreneurs or investors and happen to find yourself in Windhoek or Nairobi, perhaps some of these events will be worth your time.
Want to learn from an entrepreneur who has scaled to over 8 million active users, and raised money from Silicon Valley’s top investors? Startup Founder is a free, online event that you can participate in from your computer.
This webinar will feature Gagan Biyani, CEO of Sprig, and Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute.
For more information on this free event, follow this link.
Date: 11 November, 07:00pm
Location: Online
Namibia
Ampion Venture Bus kicks off in Windhoek
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.
Date: 13 November, 12:00pm to 06:00pm
Location: FabLab Namibia, Windhoek
Kenya
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: 11 November, 06:30pm
Location: Nailab, Bishop Magua Centre, Nairobi
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.
