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.
Have a startup event that you want to submit to us? Send us an email.
Cape Town and Stellenbosch
Startup Grind Hosts Yair Shimansky
The June edition of the monthly fireside chat features Yair Shimansky of Shimansky Jewellers. Shimansky is also an Angel Investor in startups in the mobile and internet secors with vast experience in the Jewellery and Diamond trade from retail, Wholesale to Manufacturing. Brand developments and implantation from concept creation to finish product across the supply chain.
Date: 27 June, 6:30pm to 9:30pm
Location: Townhouse Hotel
Silicon Cape Tech Talks: Technology for Education
In recognition 2016 being 40 years since the Soweto Uprising, this month’s Silicon Cape Tech Talk is themed around Empowering Youth Through Tech and will focus on how technology is empowering youth.
The event will start off with a welcome from the Silicon Cape Chairperson Daniel Gausco, followed by two to three brief sessions promoting various initiatives and projects that are being run by members of the Silicon Cape community.
Date: 29 June, 7pm to 9pm
Location: Workshop 17
eCommerce in SA just hit the 1% tipping point, whats your game plan?
eCommerce in SA just hit one percent of total retail sales (or so they say). This is widely considered to be the key tipping point after-which exponential growth is expected.
Roslyn Lavery of PayFast will be lead a discussion that includes insights into consumer payment behaviour, and a look at some technical rules around how to deal with voucher based payments. More of a discussion will follow to look at the various systems people in the space are working on to take advantage of this expected increase in eCommerce growth. There will, of course, be a focus on where payment fits in to these systems.
Date: 29 June, 6:30pm
Location: Hint Hunt
WAYN : a French and South African Tech start-up success story
This event takes the form of a discussion with Jerome Touze, co-founder of WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?). Among the points to be discussed at the event are:
- ‘story’: starting with very little seed capital to then raising Series A and exiting.
- viral marketing / the viral coefficient multiplier / how to provide Return on Investment metrics when thinking of Social Media ?
- the future of WAYN / Lessons learnt (dos and don’t)
With over 23.5 million members worldwide, WAYN.com is the largest travelling social community online with members in 193 countries. WAYN allows users to discover where to travel to next and share experiences with others and generates over 50 000 travel opinions daily and over 50 million visitors every year. The platform grows by over 2 000 subscribers daily.
Date: 30 June, 6:00pm
Location: Alliance Française du Cap, 155 Loop Street
Barclays Demo Day Powered by Techstars
Following a global search for founders bringing innovation to financial services in emerging markets, Barclays selected ten companies from nine different countries, spending thirteen at Rise in Cape Town to move their businesses forward. Those thirteen weeks culminate in Demo Day, which will see the founders tell their stories and present their businesses, which range from new approaches to financial inclusion to digitising land administration on the blockchain.
Date: 30 June, 3:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: The Lookout – Granger Bay Boulevard
Fast Track Your Profits – Quantum Business School
On 2 & 3 July in Cape Town Rock Your Life’s Mike Handcock is running Fast Track Your Profits, which is a quantum business event designed to teach South African entrepreneurs how to compete and conquer the global mindset.
Date: 2 July, 9:00am to 3 July, 5:00pm
Location: Mountain View Room – Bridgeways @ Ratanga Junction
Johannesburg
Startup Jozi – Agile Basics For Software Development
The speaker for the June edition of this monthly event is Thabang Phaleng. He will be sharing insights and answering questions on using the Agile methodology for software development projects and for product management among other things.
Date: 30 June, 6:00pm
Location: JoziHub
StartupBlink June Networking Event
This monthly networking event aims to help entrepreneurs build connections through casual group discussions of around 2-15 members. During the event, each participant will get a chance to introduce themselves and their project to the other attendees.
Date: 30 June, 7:00pm
Location: TBC
Nairobi
Ideation Workshop: getting from AN idea to THE idea
This two-day event is intended to help entrepreneurs figure out which of their ideas would work if implemented correctly. This first session is focused on opportunity, looking to answer questions such as: how competitive is your solution? Will you be able to carve out your market and develop your venture into a sustainable one? What can you expect of the other players in your market?
Date: 27 June, 1:30pm to 5:00pm
Location: The Hub East Africa
This month’s #iHubSpeaks event will focus on visual arts in a discussion titled ‘STORIES FOR A FRACTURED CITY’. Leading the discussion is Jim Chuchu.
Chuchu is a Kenyan visual artist, filmmaker and musician living and working in Nairobi. He is also co-founder of the Nest Collective—a multidisciplinary art collaborative based in Nairobi.
Date: 28 June, 5:30pm to 7:30pm
Location: iHub
After Office Hours//Leadership
After Office Hours is a free bi-monthly event, organized by Nairobi Garage where its members and innovators from Nairobi and surroundings have the unique opportunity to interact with exceptional speakers in their respective field of expertise for short interactive talks.
This month’s speaker is Cece Ojany, Director of Main Protagonist Coaching. Ojay will give attendees her best tips on leadership, developing more self awareness, and learning to problem-solve with more effectiveness, ease and flow.
Date: 30 June, 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: Nairobi Garage
Supporting our girls and Female Entrepreneurs
Organised by the Kenyan chapter of Women in Tech Africa, this event is designed to help female Kenyan entrepreneurs perfect their pitches. Speakers will present on topics such as what investors look for in a pitch and knowing your business model, before moving to a panel discussion.
Date: 30 June, 6:00pm to 9:00pm
Location: WECREATE Center
Lagos
StartupBlink June Networking Event
This monthly networking event aims to help entrepreneurs build connections through casual group discussions of around 2-15 members. During the event, each participant will get a chance to introduce themselves and their project to the other attendees.
Date: 30 June, 7:00pm
Location: Vintage Bar
Accra
Launch of Innohub Accelerator Program
The Innohub Accelerator Program is designed to help entrepreneurs test their key assumptions, projections, business plan strategy, viability and impact. Its goal is to support early stage start-ups to build ventures that are investment-ready. Startups on the program will each receive a pre-seed investment of US$10 000 in cash and services, in exchange for equity stake.
The Keynote Speaker for the launch event is Rev. Dr. Joyce Rosalind Aryee, Advisory Board Chair for theInnohub Accelerator Program, with Ms. Hamdiya Ismaila, General Manager of Venture Capital Trust Fund as Guest Speaker.
Date: 29 June, 10:00am to 12:00pm
Location: British Council
