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 [31/07/2017]
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.
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
Thundafund is South Africa’s leading online crowdfunding marketplace for creatives and innovators. The workshop is for anyone who wants to learn more about crowdfunding.
Date: 1 August, 1pm to 2pm
Location: 108 Kloof Street, Gardens, Cape Town
For people working in startups, lean (startup) coffee is a weekly one hour coffee meetup that runs a mash-up of leancoffee.org with theleanstartup.com.
Date: 2 August, 8.30am to 9.30am
Location: 1 Somerset Road, Green Point, Cape Town
Did you know that in 2016 just 2.5% of venture capital funding went to female entrepreneurs? Future Females mission is to accelerate the success of aspiring and existing female entrepreneurs – to provide an environment where females can connect, and access the key resources (mentorship , funding, education) needed to succeed.
Date: 3 August, 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Location: Barclays Rise, 5th Floor, Block B, Woodstock Exchange 66-68 Albert Road, Cape Town
African Crowdfunding Association: Crowdfunding fintech
Kevin Allen, founding director of the African Crowdfunding Association will talk about the basics of crowdfunding with a focus on fintech startups using case studies of success stories at both rewards and equity crowdfunding.
Date: 4 August, 9am to 10am
Location: Barclays Rise, 5th Floor, Block B, Woodstock Exchange 66-68 Albert Road, Cape Town
Johannesburg
Kicking of Women’s Month, this week’s Startup Grind Johannesburg features Jayshree Naidoo. She heads the Standard Bank Incubator and the interim CEO of Feenix Trust. Naidoo will be talking about how a crowdfunding company is helping Students in South Africa.
Date: 1 Aug, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: Standard Bank Hatfield Hub (Inside Standard Bank Branch), 440 Hilda Street, Hatfield, Pretoria
‘Must-have’ innovations, get investment !
TMARA will share the groundbreaking principles, framework and methodology to scientifically predict and prove “must-have” new product status, through achieving a perfect product-market fit. Startups and corporate investors are welcome to attend.
Date: 2 August, 2pm to 3.30pm
Location: Dariel Solutions, 33 Scott Str, Waverley, Johannesburg
Blockchain and cryptocurrency – what’s next?
AlphaCode and The Foundery will hold a panel discussion with five industry experts on the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Thereafter experience a few blockchain use case demos, including a design by JP Morgan Quorum and Consensys for the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Panelists include Nerushika Bowan an emerging tech law specialist, Farzam Ehsani RMB Blockchain Lead, Peter Munnings a blockchain expert for Consensys, Tanya Knowles a managing executive at Fractal Solutions and Lorien Gamaroff founder of CentBee and Bankymoon.
Date: 2 August, 6pm to 8pm
Location: 1 Merchant Place, Ground Floor Pub, Cnr Fredman Drive and Rivonia Road, Sandton
JAMLAB meetup: Stories of media iInnovation and entrepreneurship
Asmaa Malik will be participating in a JAMLAB Meetup on media innovation and startups. She will share some case studies of media startups that have grown out of the Digital Media Zone, a tech hub at Ryerson.
Malik will be joined by South African media innovators for a discussion on where to find the “white spaces” for digital media startups and what support hubs, universities and others should be offering to grow and improve media innovation.
Date: 2 August, 5pm to 8pm
Location: Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, 41 Juta Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
THUD Sandton: Five years of crawling: The African entrepreneur’s leapfrog
THUD, a peer-to-peer networking community for entrepreneurs have invested over R11-million in small enterprises over the past five years with a presence in over 14 cities across Africa and growing. The event will look back at the last five years and lay plans for the next steps.
Date: 4 August, 6.30am to 9am
Location: OPEN Sandton 138 West Street Sandton, Johannesburg
Kenya
Muthoni Njoki a marketing associate at Gebeya Ltd will be the main speaker at this Startup Grind’s Potluck Party where elections and entrepreneurship in 2017 will be discussed. In attendance will be long standing founders, foreign founders, political activists, bloggers and startup founders.
Date: 5 August, 2pm to 4pm
Location: Metta Nairobi Belgravia Suite 6A, 14 Riverside , Nairobi
Nigeria
This week’s Startup Grind Abuja sees Amaka Udeh of Hot FM host Faith Yebo in a chat on how to be a successful entrepreneur.
Date: 3 August, 5pm to 7pm
Location: Ecwa Wuse 234, Blantye street Wuse 2, Abuja
Want to be part of a new technology ecosystem in Nigeria? This event will look at how fintech and other providers can optimise bank’s customer experience using Python Machine Learning (Watson), statistical analysis in R and domain knowledge in finance and banking. Participants stand a chance to win up to 50 000 naira.
Date: 4 August, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: The Civic Center Ozumba Mbadiwe Ave Lagos
Funding is one of the main challenges founders face. This practical session explores how Nigerian founders have raised funds for their startups – in a panel session with Edwin Ajogun, CEO and founder of eMedRep, Sheriff Shittu, CEO and co-founder of Switch.ng and Fikayo Ogunwale co-founder of ToLet.com.ng.
Date: 5 August, 10am to 1pm
Location: Ecwa Wuse 234, Blantye street Wuse 2, Abuja
Ghana
At this event you can hear the stories, tips and best practices of those who left their jobs to pursue their own startup company. Speakers include Belinda Noah an attorney at Minkah-Premo and Associates and Stella Appenteng CEO of Apstar Tours Limited.
Date: 1 August, 6.30pm
Location: UT Academy, 24 Lagos Avenue, East Legon, Accra, Accra
Featured image: Robert Scoble via Flickr (CC 2.0 license BY-SA, resized)
