Looking to get into the South African startup scene or catch 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
Guillaume De Smedt will be in conversation this week with Lorraine Steyn, who started tech company KRS in 1987 at the age of 24. She now has overseas clients and an internship programme, providing an accelerated programme for graduates to gain work experience and enter the software development field.
Date: 13 July, 5.30pm to 8pm
Location: Workshop 17, 17 Dock Rd, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
Free workshop on Data Protection Act
Brevity Law will present a brief introduction to the Protection of Personal Information Ac (POPI) and the Consumer Protection Act, two pieces of legislation that most businesses will likely come into contact with on a regular basis.
Date: 13 July, 10am to 12pm
Location: 3rd Floor, Bandwidth Barn, Woodstock Exchange
The fourth annual annual do_action WordPress Charity Hackathon will is calling for project managers, designers, social media managers, content managers, developers and quality assurance testers to help build websites for 10 different non-profit organisations in one day – all of the sites will be hosted for free for life by Hetzner.
Date: 15 July, 8am to 6am
Location: Workshop 17, 17 Dock Rd, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
Kenya
DEMO Africa and Mastercard Labs are running an informational session on how to grow your business to achieve global scale in just a few years. The discussion will be led by the Mastercard Innovation Management team and will leverage the team’s years of experience working with startups globally.
The event has only capacity for 15 startups teams (three persons per team). These will be assigned on a first come first served basis.
Date: 11 July, 8.30am to 11.30am
Location: MasterCard Labs for Financial Inclusion, Ground Floor, Eaton Place, United Nations Crescent 333, Nairobi
The #LetsTalkBusiness monthly business event series is run by Kimani Patrick, the founder and CEO of Inversk, with the aim of providing both startup founders and entrepreneurs the information required to build and scale a business — no matter what stage you may be at.
Date: 11 July, 5pm to 7.30pm
Location: All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi
Hubcubation is a six-month programme designed for entrepreneurs have been in business for at least a year and who want to take their startup to the next level of professionalism and sustainability. The first session begins on 14 July and the workshops run until 10 December.
Date: 14 July, 9am to 4pm
Location: The Entrepreneurs Hub, Waiyaki Way, Nairobi,
Nigeria
Nigeria Investment Opportunities Expo
Tap into the over 300 billion naira in financing and funding opportunities available at the Nigeria Investment Opportunities Expo, with over 100 financing and supporting organisations, over 30 state governments showcasing investment opportunities and venture capitalists and private and institutional investors in attendance among others.
Date: 12 to 13 July, 10am to 5pm
Location: Federal Palace Hotel, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos
Join Farouq Oyebiyi who will talk about his experience building machine-learning applications including why he chose the models he did, what technologies he used and his experience deploying his apps.
Date: 13 July, 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Location: Co-Creation Hub, 6th Floor, 294 Herbert Macaulay Way, Lagos, Nigeria
CFA’s Startups Hangout is a monthly meetup where startups can connect with successful entrepreneurs and top executives who have garnered tons of life and business experiences money cannot buy.
Bolaji Finnih, the CEO of TechPreneur Africa — a social impact organisation and Ommo Clark, the CEO of iBez, a technology company that provides software development services — will speak at the event.
Date: 14 July, 5pm to 8pm
Location: Adna Hotel Limited, 28 Oladipo Bateye Road, Ikeja, Lagos
Join this month’s talk with Oluwaseun Awoyele, the co-founder of Devcenter, a vibrant online community of the best developers, designers on the continent. Awoyele leads a cross-functional team of software developers and has run technical operations on various private and government approved projects at a software development company for five years.
Date: 14 July, 6pm to 1am
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Ghana
Have a strong idea that could be pitched more clearly? Then join the Startup Pitch Bootcamp. In just three hours, this intensive workshop will help you improve your pitching skills and understand the components of a great pitch. Speakers include Belinda Noah, an attorney from Minkah-Premo and Associates.
Date: 11 July, 6.30pm
Location: UT Academy, 24 Lagos Avenue, East Legon, Accra
Featured image: Andrew Eland via Flickr (CC 2.0, resized)
