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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Not all of the events are free and some will require booking in advance. Please click on the event names to find out more information.
Cape Town
Net Prophet Sparkup! Live Investment
Sparkup! Is a small business gauntlet for passionate founders looking to get investment and take a product to market. Three intense days of business grooming, culminating in a live audience investor pitch.
Date: 4 April, 6pm to 8:30pm
Location: 22Seven Vintage Theatre
MultiChoice Media Innovation Pitch Challenge
A collaboration between LaunchLab and MultiChoice, the challenge focuses on unlocking breakthrough innovation in the video entertainment value chain. Participants pitching on the day will have the opportunity to engage in a one-one session with Nomfundo Mncube, Innovations Manager at MultiChoice.
Date: 6 April, 12pm to 5pm
Location: Stellenbosch University Nedbank LaunchLab
LaunchLab IDEAS Challenge: WIN a share of R150 000 in incubation support
The Pitching Platform provides an opportunity for participants to win incubation support valued at more than R150 000, as well as connections to industry partners in each category. The winners have to use the prize to further develop their ideas. The competition starts off with an informal video recorded pitch at one of the scheduled locations, or submitted online via wetransfer.com.
Finalists are then selected to pitch to a live crowd and panel of judges. The judges select the best ideas in a general category and in specific challenge categories linked to our focus verticals as posted by our industry partners. Each event has different challenges within the following categories:
Fintech & Big Data, Paid Media, Cleantech, Agritech & Food, Edutech and Exceptional. Each category has a challenge framed specifically for that category from one of our industry partners, as described above.
Date: 6 April 6, 12pm to 5pm
Location: Stellenbosch University Nedbank LaunchLab
TechTalkCPT Medical Tech and Innovation
The latest edition of this monthly talk series looks at innovative technology used in the medical industry. From equiment created for measuring the air capacity of the lungs to dual-modality mammography machine. The three directors of BMEC speak to us about everything that goes on behind the scenes when designing and building this specialised tech.
The BMEC team that will be presenting on the night are Raphael Smith, Shuaib Omar and Heidi Wilson.
Date: 6 April, 6pm to 8pm
Location: 22Seven
The Net Prophet conference is Africa’s largest tech entrepreneur event, bringing together innovators, founders, technologists, startups, angel investors and venture capitalists for a day filled with aha! moments at Cape Town’s Artscape Theatre.
Date: 7 April, 8am to 5pm
Location: Artscape Theatre
Women in Business is for female entrepreneurs who are looking for a supportive place to share start-up experiences, compare notes, and exchange tips and advice. It is for women who have been running their business for at least a year.
Participants are provided with strategic support to help address their key challenges and help them rethink their business plans if necessary. The programme will empower women to participate in a highly competitive environment and develop leadership ability.
The programme requires a commitment of up to 10 five-hour, face-to-face sessions held over the course of a year. The sessions are facilitated by an experienced moderator and there is an emphasis on networking and peer support.
Date: 7 April, 10am to 1pm
Location: Bandwidth Barn Woodstock
LaunchLab IDEAS Challenge: WIN a share of R150,000 in incubation support
The Pitching Platform provides an opportunity for participants to win incubation support valued at more than R150 000, as well as connections to industry partners in each category. The winners have to use the prize to further develop their ideas. The competition starts off with an informal video recorded pitch at one of the scheduled locations, or submitted online via wetransfer.com.
Finalists are then selected to pitch to a live crowd and panel of judges. The judges select the best ideas in a general category and in specific challenge categories linked to our focus verticals as posted by our industry partners. Each event has different challenges within the following categories:
Fintech & Big Data, Paid Media, Cleantech, Agritech & Food, Edutech and Exceptional. Each category has a challenge framed specifically for that category from one of our industry partners, as described above.
Date: 7 April 2016, 12pm to 5pm
Location: UCT, GSB – MTN Solution Space
Johannesburg
Woocommerce Meetup – April 2016
This event a general mixer meetup where participants get together and talk about WooCommerce. This first event will be joint with WP Joburg.
There will be pizza (thanks Code Cabin), ice teas (thanks Digital Leap) and coffee (thanks Payfast).
Date: 5 April 2016, 6:00pm onward
Location: JoziHub (Main Event Space)
“Life in Software Testing: Before and After Agile” presentation by Rahul Sharma
Rahul is a programmer by situation, a tester by choice and Agilist by Passion. Currently Scrum Master at Multichoice, his talk will explore a number of topics, including how his life got changed as an IT professional.
Date: 5 April, 6:00pm onward
Location: 144 Bram Fischer, Randburg, 2194
Coderetreat is a day-long, intensive practice event, focusing on the fundamentals of software development and design.
By providing developers the opportunity to take part in focused practice, away from the pressures of ‘getting things done’, the coderetreat format has proven itself to be a highly effective means of skill improvement.
Practicing the basic principles of modular and object-oriented design, developers can improve their ability to write code that minimizes the cost of change over time.
Date: 9 April, 7:30am onward
Location: Ambrosia Hall, 95 Allan Road
