F5.5G Leap-forward Development of Broadband in Africa The Africa Broadband Forum 2024 (BBAF 2024) was successfully held in Cape Town, South Africa recently, under…
Top startup events in South Africa, Africa you should know about this week [23/11/2015]
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.
Cape Town
Accelerating Market Adoption for Startups
Market adoption is often touted as one of the biggest challenges for the South African startup. The TMARA INSTITUTE is presenting a special one-hour session on “the common-sense solution to breaking the market constraint for accelerating market adoption and achieving commercial success”.
Sounds like your gig? Click here for more details.
Date: 25 November, 5:30pm
Location: Workshop 17, Cape Town
Silicon Cape #SCTechTalk — Innovative Funding Mechanisms
Join the likes of Joshua Shimkin from FitKey, Catherine Luckhoff from Nichestreem, and more in this monthly event as they discuss innovative funding mechanisms for startups.
The first 50 tickets are free. See here for more information.
Date: 26 November, 7pm to 8:15pm
Location: Workshop 17, Cape Town
Silicon Cape and Newtown Partners are hosting a startup matchmaking event. The event will host 15 high potential startups that are looking for either a technical co-founder or software engineers to join their team.
It will also host speakers Vincent Maher, former Chief Innovation Officer at Kagiso Media, and Alen Ribic, the CTO of SweepSouth.
Click here for more information.
Date: 23 November, 6pm
Location: Inner City Ideas Cartel
CapaCiTi’s Top Tech Talent Celebration
CapaCiTi, boasted as Africa’s most successful tech talent pipeline, is celebrating over 500 tech professionals matched to top jobs and the start of their tech careers.
Click here for more information.
Date: 24 November, 4pm to 7pm
Location: Cape Town Stadium, Fritz Sonnenberg Road
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: 25 November, 8:30am to 09:30am
Location: TRUTH Coffee, Somerset Road, Greenpoint
Mastermind Anonymous Meetup is a series of biweekly meetups, which allows you to submit ideas to us anonymously before the event to be discussed at the event in a think-tank type of scenario.
Date: 26 November, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Location: Daddy.O workspace (The Old Biscuit Mill), 375 Albert Road (Block A), Woodstock
A night of Courage at the Bandwidth Barn
Join host Simon Ekin and his guest Given Radingwana at the Bandwidth Barn’s Night of Courage this week. Born in the heart of Limpopo and then moving to Cape Town to pursue a career in entrepreneurship, Radingwana launched his first company at age 19 while still in varsity. Today, he is a non-Executive Director at The Big Issue South Africa and runs the operations at Peach Payments.
Date: 26 November, 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Location: TRUTH Coffee, Somerset Road, Greenpoint
Johannesburg
Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. This session will give you a chance to learn more about the founder of successful chicken franchise Nando’s, Robbie Brozin. Besides the fireside chat, the event presents an opportunity to network.
Date: 24 November, 6:30pm to 9pm
Location: Museum of African Design, Commissioner Street
Impact Hub Johannesburg is hosting an evening to discuss the importance of failure. Entrepreneurs that will be sharing their tales of Fuck Up will include tech Entrepreneur & Founder of VSpace.Technology, Vinu Nair; Mikie Monoketsi, health, fitness and lifestyle entrepreneur and owner of Mama’s Herbs & Spices, as well as property developer and founder of Urban Kraal, Neo Mokhobo and lastly our own Lesley Donna Williams social innovator and co-founder of Impact Hub Johannesburg.
Date: 26 November, 6pm to 9pm
Location: Simanye, 33 Fricker Rd, Illovo
THUDrosebank Entrepreneur #SBIncubator 2015 Finale
Hosted by the Hookup Dinner and powered by Standard Bank, the meetup aims to look back at the year’s highs and lows at the Standard Bank Incubator.
Date: 27 November, 6:30pm to 9pm
Location: Standard Bank Incubator, Rosebank, Johannesburg, South Africa
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: 25 November, 07:00am to 08:30am
Location: Cafe Dolce Vita — Shop 20, BluBird Shopping Centre
More events from around the continent
Rounding off its tour through the African continent, Seedstars World have chosen the 10 startups to pitch in Gaborone, Botswana. One startup will be crowned the country’s winner and will travel to Switzerland next year for the global pitching competition.
Seedstars World kicked off its seven-month Africa tour in May this year with a mission to visit 12 different countries around the continent. These include Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.
Click here for more information.
Date: 27 November
Location: Microsoft Innovation Centre, Gaborone
Accra Founder Institute Information Session
If you are thinking about launching a company, then the Accra Founder Institute may be a good option for you. The event is for those keen to learn more about the Founder Institute’s entrepreneur four-month training programme.
Date: 25 November, 05:30pm
Location: iSpace Foundation, Accra
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.
