Looking to get into the South African startup scene or brush up on some of your skills? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
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
Launch, grow, sell and maintain a successful online business
If you are new to e-commerce, looking to launch a new e-business, or are part of an online marketplace – this is where you can get started. Learn from Netflorist, Hollard, the University of the Western Cape, Vega School, Red & Yellow and more.
Date: 5 to 6 March
Location: Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), Convention Square, 1 Lower Long Street, Cape Town, South Africa
How to Pitch like a pro with Sarah Rice
This two-hour workshop will take a look at the new rules, expectations and myths of pitching.
The workshop will break pitching into its three core components — the business, the slide deck and the presentation — and give real world practical examples and guidelines on how to create and deliver pitches that can move your business forward in reality, not just on stage.
Date: 6 March, 9am to 11am
Location: Rise Cape Town, 5th Floor, Block B, Woodstock Exchange, 66 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town
For those working in startups, lean (startup) coffee is a weekly one-hour coffee meetup that runs a mash-up of leancoffee.org with theleanstartup.com.
Unlike other startup meetups, lean (startup) coffee has no set agenda or a line-up of speakers, instead, the talks are centred around what you care about.
Date: 7 March, 8.30am to 9.30am
Location: 1 Somerset Road, Green Point, Cape Town
Join WeAreMonsters co-founder and CTO Stephan Steynfaardt as he shares his founding team’s experiences building the company which conceptualises and builds sustainable businesses to solve real-world problems.
Date: 9 March, 9am to 11am
Location: Rise Cape Town, 66 Albert Road, Block B, 5th Floor, Woodstock Exchange Building, Cape Town
Johannesburg
The blockchain will disrupt everything
This event will unpack and delve deep into the disruptions that will be brought about by the blockchain.
Speakers include ConsenSys Capital co-founder Andrew Keys, ConsenSys technical lead for enterprise delivery Peter Munnings and ConsenSys community lead for Africa Ben Onuoha.
Date: 7 March, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: Impact Hub Johannesburg, 9 Walters Street, Rosebank 158 Jan Smuts Building, 4th Floor, East Wing, Johannesburg
Blockchain Africa Conference 2018
The conference will bring together a range of local and international speakers to discuss blockchain and cryptocurrency use cases, the regulatory environment, technology hurdles, and opportunities in innovation and disruption that can be leveraged using this technology.
Date: 8 to 9 March, 8am to 5pm
Location: Microsoft South Africa, Bryanston, Johannesburg
22 ON SLOANE weekly Startup Huddles : What’s next in lifestyle innovation
22 ON SLOANE Startup Huddle programme is designed to educate, engage and connect entrepreneurs globally.
This week’s event aims to give insights into trends and opportunities of lifestyle innovation in Africa.
Date: 8 March, 5.30pm to 8pm
Location: The Atrium @ 22 ON SLOANE, 22 ON SLOANE, GEN AFRICA, Sloane Street, Bryanston, Sandton
Ivory Coast
International Startup Day 2018
Encourage, support and celebrate the promotion, creation and development of startups and their ecosystems around the world at this African Startup Forum event.
Date: 9 March to 11 March, 8pm to 6pm
Location: African Startup Forum, Cocody, Riviera, Abidjan
Kenya
iTechpreneurship: Creating chaos to avoid chaos, a talk by Kamran Elahian
Kamran Elahian — philanthropist, investor and entrepreneur — will be giving a public lecture on iTechpreneurship: Creating chaos to avoid chaos.
Date: 5 March, 6pm to 7pm
Location: Strathmore Business School, Ole Sangale Road, Nairobi
UNESCO Mobile programming hackathon
This hackathon will see 30 developers fine-tune their apps, with the best apps to be selected to pitch on the final day on Friday.
Date: 5 to 6 March, 8am to 5pm
Location: University of Nairobi, University Way, Nairobi
FinTech Africa 2018: Happy Hour with Village Capital
Join this event to learn more about Village Capital programmes in East and West Africa.
Date: 6 March, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Tusker Lite Sky Bar, Ibis Hotel, Rhaphta Road, Westlands, Nairobi
Nairobi Innovation week is an annual event held every year in March to bring together global technology industry players and leaders to promote innovation growth and industrialisation in the local and regional economy.
This year’s theme is innovating for a better tomorrow.
Date: 5 to 9 March, 8pm to 6pm
Location: University of Nairobi, University Way, Nairobi
Become a globally successful tech entrepreneur
Do you aspire to build your own pan-African tech company? Do you want to learn more about how you can join one of the biggest startup communities on the continent? Join the MEST Africa team as they share their experience working with entrepreneurs from across the continent.
Date: 7 March, 6pm to 8pm
Location: Metta Nairobi, 14 Riverside Drive, Nairobi
Introduction to blockchain for entrepreneurs
In partnership with the World Blockchain Summit to be held in Nairobi later this month, The Entrepreneur Hub will this week host this week explore how blockchain technology can be applied to their business.
Date: 7 March, 1pm to 4pm
Location: The Entrepreneurs Hub, Waiyaki Way, Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
Decentralising tools of wealth creation through blockchain technology
Join this talk on blockchain and distributed ledger technology. Topics that will be covered include potential applications, use cases, and token analysis.
Date: 8 March, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Moringa School, Ngong Lane, Nairobi
Become a globally successful tech entrepreneur
Do you aspire to build your own pan-African tech company? Do you want to learn more about how you can join one of the biggest startup communities on the continent? Join the MEST Africa team as they share their experience working with entrepreneurs from across the continent.
Date: 9 March, 6pm to 7.30pm
Location: Moringa School, Ngong Lane, Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya
Creating the next generation of African entrepreneurs
Join Pangea Accelerator co-founder and CEO Jonas Tsefu at this event which will be held during the Nairobi Innovation Week.
Tsefu along with other guest speakers will discuss how to unleash the power of Kenya’s startups ecosystem as well as how to bridge the talent within the country’s startup scene.
Date: 9 March, 7.30am to 11.30am
Location: Strathmore University, 00200 Ole Sangale Road, iBiz Africa, Nairobi
Nigeria
Youthpreneur Women’s Enterprise Clinic (YWEC) 2018
In commemoration of International Women’s Day, join other women entrepreneurs and CEOs as they share their knowledge, experiences and strategies for growth at this annual event.
Date: 9 March to 11 March, 8pm to 6pm
Location: American Corner, CcHub, Herbert Macaulay Way, Yaba, Lagos
Injini, Africa’s first edtech dedicated incubator, will be in Lagos to meet with edtech innovators and to promote applications for its second cohort.
Date: 6 March, 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Location: MEST Incubator Lagos, 19B Adeyemi Lawson Street, Lagos
OnlineHubNG’s Techaholics March edition
Techaholics is a monthly tech talk meet-up event aimed at young creative and savvy tech entrepreneurs.
This month, the conversation will be revolving around how to build a digitally enabled business as it relates to the Abeokuta Tech Ecosystem.
Date: 10 March, 9am to 1pm
Location: NEST by KUTA, Oke-Ilewo Tagoa Streets, Ibara, Abeokuta, Ogun State
Tanzania
Artificial Intelligence (AI) training in Dar es Salaam (Machine Learning Workshop)
Leading corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook are betting their futures on AI. This workshop is designed for entrepreneurs and software developers who want to explore opportunities in the field.
Date: 10 March, 10am to 5.30pm
Location: Peacock Hotel, Bibi Titi Mohammed Street, Dar es Salaam, Ilala
Featured image: Robert Scoble via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
