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
Startup Grind UK / SA Collaboration
Startup Grind Cape Town, in conjunction with the British High Commission, is hosting a group of UK tech and innovation delegates.
The delegation aims to connect with key players in the South African tech landscape, share insights about the UK markets’ direction, and help steer collaboration between the UK and South Africa in supporting tech entrepreneurship in the country.
Date: 26 March, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: Workshop 17, 17 Dock Road, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
Join established and emerging fintech companies as they discuss the current state and future of the industry. Topics to be covered include investech, blockchain, financial inclusion, initial coin offerings and the future of payments and transfers, among others.
Keynote speakers include investor and entrepreneur David Orban, Wealth Migrate CEO Scott Picken and Willem Van Der Post.
Date: 27 March, 9.30am to 4.30pm
Location: Cape Town International Convention Centre, 1 Lower Long Street, Cape Town
Cape Town Artificial Intelligence (AI): Implications and impact
Cape Town AI gatherings are quarterly, three hour events for AI practitioners focusing on lessons learned applying AI.
Date: 27 March, 6pm to 9pm
Location: 22 Seven, 60 Hout Street, Cape Town
Solution Space Pitch Nights provide a platform for entrepreneurs to practice pitching their startups to local angel investors and hear what other entrepreneurs are working on. After three pitches, a Q&A session and feedback from the panel, entrepreneurs network and connect with each other over drinks and snacks.
This month’s theme is ecommerce. Startups disrupting the online shopping space are invited to come pitch their business solutions to a panel of industry experts.
Date: 27 March, 6pm to 7.30pm
Location: UCT Graduate School of Business, Solution Space, 9 Portswood Road, Green Point, Cape Town
MEST Masterclass: Demystifying African investment – The investor perspective with Andrea Bohmert
This two-part masterclass will help unpack the investment process, from planning your investment roadmap, through closing the final deal. The class will explore which businesses are likely to benefit from risk capital and what you should look for in a prospective investment partner. This event is ideal for companies looking to raise seed, Series-A or Series-B funding.
The first session will be in conversation with Knife Capital partner Andrea Böhmert who will share her trips for ensuring startups better understand the venture capitalist-startup relationship, what to look for and what good deals looks like.
Date: 27 March, 4pm to 6pm
Location: MEST Incubator, 66 Albert Road, Woodstock Exchange building, Rise Cape Town, Cape Town
Representatives from Yoco, Wumdrop, SweepSouth and Lifecheq as they discuss back-end tools that power our infrastructure and developing in React.
Date: 27 March, 7pm to 9pm
Location: Yoco Technologies, 56 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town
For those working in startups, Lean (startup) coffee is a weekly one-hour coffee meetup that runs a mashup of leancoffee.org with theleanstartup.com.
Date: 28 March, 8.30am to 9.30am
Location: 1 Somerset Road, Green Point, Cape Town
Rise to the challenge: Internet of Things (IoT)
Rise To The Challenge is an event series exploring the technology areas that are shaping the future of the financial industry.
Join Polymorph Systems CEO Richard Barry and Swie.io and Sensorit.io founder Aubrey Mnisi as they discuss trends in IoT, the barriers and opportunities in the sector, as well as the intersection between the field and fintech.
Date: 29 March, 11am to 12.30pm
Location: Rise Cape Town, 66 Albert Road, Woodstock Exchange building, Rise Cape Town, Block B,5fth Floor, Cape Town
Bloemfontein
Startup Grind Bloemfontein: AI and how to go global from Bloemfontein
Join Xineoh founder and CEO Vian Chinner and COO Bea Chinner as they discuss how the startup has applied mathematical modelling and machine learning to ad technology.
Date: 28 March, 6pm to 9pm
Location: Mazars, 46 1st Ave, Westdene, Bloemfontein
Durban
Startup Grind Durban hosts Zapper founder and CEO David de Villiers
Join Zapper founder and CEO David de Villiers at this fireside chat where he will discuss his entrepreneurial journey.
Find out how he has, in just under four years, grown Zapper to operate in 14 countries.
Date: 28 March, 6pm to 8.30pm
Location: Pavilion Hotel Durban, 15 Old Ford Road (KE Masinga), Durban
Johannesburg
Startup Grind hosts MyGrowthFund CEO Vusi Thembekwayo
This week, Startup Grind Johannesburg hosts MyGrowthFund CEO, venture capitalist, author and speaker Vusi Thembekwayo.
Date: 27 March, 6pm to 9pm
Location: Impello Incubation Hub, 139 Greenway Avenue, Greenside, Randburg
Startup Grind: How to get your app built affordably
Learn how to get your app idea built and take it the market – without it costing an arm and a leg.
This workshop is suitable for anyone — whether you are tech savvy or just have a great app idea — and will cover topics like how to find the right developers, getting a fair price as well as common pitfalls among other issues.
Date: 29 March, 8.30am to 10.30am
Location: IBM Offices, 90 Grayston Drive, Sandton
Cameroon
Cameroon Entrepreneurship Conference
This conference, which will focus on how to make business simpler, is set to bring together entrepreneurs, government representatives, diplomats, youth leaders and policy makers.
Date: 29 March to 30 March, 8am to 7pm
Location: Younde Congress Hall, Yaounde Centre, Cameroon
Ethiopia
EthioHacks IV aims to solve these issues around agriculture, health, finance, and education by leveraging leading technologies that run the digital world today.
The two-day hackathon will provide the attendees with a chance to network with professionals and industry leaders from different fields as they collaborate and solve challenges.
Date: 31 March to 1 April, 8.30am to 6pm
Location: Gebeya Headquarters, Sinan Commercial Building 2nd Floor, Bole Subcity, Addis Ababa
Egypt
Join Cairo Angels general manager Menna AbdelRahman in this workshop which will walk attendees through the basics of angel investment, how to identify whether it’s the right fit for you, how to get involved in angel investment and the three key things you need to know before making your first investment.
Date: 30 March, 1.30pm to 3pm
Location: G-Space, Gouna, Egypt
Ghana
The entrepreneurial journey and the values of mentoring
Join the founders and co-founders of five businesses as they share their knowledge through stories of their successes and failures.
The panelists will include Kasi Express CEO Richmond Worgbah, Abossey Okai Online CEO Mawuli Vannel Dzigba, Tro Tro Tractor CEO Kamal Deen Yakub, Agromyx CEO David Foli Ayivor, and Inclusive Financial Technologies CEO Paul Kwesi Damalie.
Date: 28 March, 6pm to 9pm
Location: iSpace Foundation, 2 Emmause Lane, Accra, Greater Accra Region
Ivory Coast
Injini, Africa’s first edtech dedicated incubator, will be in Abidjan to meet with edtech innovators and to promote applications for its second cohort as well as to share experiences in the ecosystem.
Date: 29 March, 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Location: TBD, Abidjan
Kenya
WhatsNext: Retail and ecommerce
The WhatsNext series of panel discussions focuses on up and coming trends in Nairobi’s innovation ecosystem. This month the focus is on retail and ecommerce.
Date: 28 March, 6pm to 8pm
Location: Mettā Nairobi, 14 Riverside, Belgravia Building 6/F, Nairobi
This panel discussion, organised by Moringa School, will feature Legibra CTO Kagai Macharia, senior software developer Jackson Chegenye and digital marketing executive James Njoroge.
The panelists will discuss three topics, namely marketing for developers, managing IT firms and also the work of a software developer.
Date: 28 March, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Moringa School, Ngong Lane, Nairobi
Crowdsolving: Gain from the experience of your peers in solving your problems
There is a whole community of entrepreneurs out there who might run a very different type of business, but just like you are struggling with the same type of issues. This is where crowdsolving comes in, sharing and solving business problems together.
Interested in this concept and have a problem you need help solving? Then you’ll like to attend this event.
Date: 29 March, 1pm to 2.30pm
Location: The Entrepreneurs Hub, Waiyaki Way, Nairobi
Morocco
Startup Battle Casablanca 2018
Startup Battle Casablanca will showcase the region’s top startups and budding entrepreneurs. 10 finalists will have the opportunity to pitch locally to a jury of Morocco’s leading investors and digital professionals, and three winners will be chosen to compete regionally.
Date: 27 March, 5pm to 8pm
Location: Technopark, Boulevard Dammam, Casablanca, Casablanca-Settat, Morocco
Nigeria
Speakers from Co-Creation Hub Lagos will discuss tips and exchange knowledge of what it takes to start a startup and after that run it successfully.
Although all sectors are invited, this session is particularly aimed at those who have edtech ideas.
Date: 29 March, 6pm to 7pm
Location: The re:learn Centre, 1st Floor, TY Danjuma Foundation Building, 35 Fandriana Close, Off Aminu Kano Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja
Startup Grind Lagos hosts Uche Pedro (Bella Naija)
Uchenna Pedro is a Nigerian blogger, writer, social media expert and entrepreneur. She is the founder of BellaNaija, an online entertainment, fashion and lifestyle magazine. In 2014, Pedro was named in Forbes list of 30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs in Africa.
Join this event to hear more about her entrepreneurial journey.
Date: 31 March, 3pm to 5pm
Location: Oracle Nigeria, 8th Floor Heritage Place, 21 Lugard Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos
Entrepreneurs Hangout is a quarterly event structured to answer “unanswered startup questions”. During this event, speakers are invited to teach, educate, inform and mentor the startups and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Venture capitalists and individual investors are also available at the event to offer investment opportunities to startups.
Date: 31 March, 9am to 2pm
Location: Lagos, Protea Hotel, 42/44 Isaac John Street, Ikeja GRA, Lagos
Tunisia
Startup Office Hours: Get business advice from experts in Tunis
If you have a startup or startup idea and would like to get feedback and guidance from top local entrepreneurs, then join this exclusive and public Startup Office Hours event.
At the event, attendees will have the opportunity to pitch expert CEO mentors and ask them questions about their business strategy, key decisions, next steps and more.
Date: 30 March, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Mediterranean School of Business, Les Berges du Lac II Walkway, Tunis
Uganda
Injini, Africa’s first edtech dedicated incubator, will be in Kampala to meet with edtech innovators and to promote applications for its second cohort as well as to share experiences in the ecosystem.
Date: 26 March, 6pm to 8pm
Location: Innovation Village, Busingye and Company Limited, 33, Plot 14A Chwa II Rd, Kampala
