SAB’s Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards now open

The South African Breweries (SAB) Foundation is calling on social entrepreneurs who are involved in assisting disadvantaged South Africans, to apply for its Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards.

The awards are split into two categories:

• Social Innovation Awards — Aimed at social entrepreneurs, institutions as well as social enterprises that already have prototypes or an early-stage business tackling social issues
• Disability Empowerment Awards — Seeks to award entrepreneurs and enterprises which have developed innovative solutions which improve access to the economy for disabled people.

The application process opens early next month and can be completed by visiting the SAB Foundation website.

“We define social innovation as innovation that demonstrates both a sustainable business model and a measurable social impact,” said SAB Foundation director Bridgit Evans in a press release to Ventureburn.

Once the application process has been concluded, a panel of judges will be assessing the entrants to evaluate whether or not they’re innovative and applicable to the lives of the disadvantaged.

Once the judges have gone through applications, the best 25 applicants will be selected who will then be invited to attend a two-day workshop in September. Participants will then be asked to present their solutions and products to the judges.

Based on the presentations, the judges will select the final winners who will be announced at an awards ceremony on 19 October.

The SAB wants to celebrate innovative startups with its Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards

“In the past seven years of the Social Innovation Awards we have been impressed with the quality and calibre of ideas and businesses that we have been presented with, over many fields and industries, including health, education, environment, community cohesion and more,” said Evans.

The awards’ prize money ranges from R150,000 to R1.2-million, additional prizes may also be awarded on the night of the ceremony at the judges’ discretion.

In addition to the prizes, each winner will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and be placed into a programme with a specially selected mentor and technical expert.

“We hope to see many more applicants entering this year, so we can help take their ideas to the next level,” said Evans.

Previous winner, Thato Kgatlhanye from Repurpose Schoolbags said the SAB Foundation gave her startup seed capital to invest in machinery and train staff in the pilot and prototyping phase of the innovation.

“The funding helped us establish operations in buying quality machinery that we are still using to this day. Our operations grew, we moved from a 50sqm factory to a 200sqm factory, and we currently export product lines to countries such as Austria, UK and Turkey.”

Featured image via YouTube