As July draws to an end, the Department of Higher Education and Training is hosting the first of its nationwide Student Entrepreneurship Week events at Wits University in Johannesburg.
The initiative, which kicks off today (30 July), encourages the youth to explore entrepreneurship rather than relying on formal employment.
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MEST Africa will explore crowdfunding tomorrow (31 July) in Cape Town with Catherine Du Ploy and Justene Josias.
If you’re in Zambia, you’ll want to listen to ALU Education’s Tolu Agunbiade as she talks about the ups and downs of starting and growing an African startup.
This article is part of a weekly series that highlights all the top startup events, competitions, networking sessions, workshops and conferences in Africa.
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
The Launchlab is revealing its Makerspace to the public and inviting all innovators to come and see what it looks like, as well as to network with like-minded people.
Date: 30 July, 5.30pm to 9pm
Location: Launchlab, Hammandshand Road
Nic Haralambous Book Launch: Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat
South African serial entrepreneur Nic Haralambous will share his personal experience of starting and running a business in this fireside chat.
Date: 31 July, 5.30pm
Location: Rise Cape Town, Rise, 5th Floor, Block B, Woodstock Exchange, 66-68 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town, WC 7925
Impact Venture Incubation Programme Info Session
Social impact driven startups interested in learning more about the Impact Venture Incubation Programme Winter School 2018 are invited to join the Philippi hub Solution Space team to chat about the programme’s selection process, benefits of the programme and what startups stand to gain from the programme.
Date: 31 July, 12pm to 1.30pm
Location: Philippi Village, 1 Cwangco Crescent, Solution Space, 3rd Floor, Cape Town, WC 7781
MEST Africa Masterclass: Crowdfunding with Backabuddy and Thundafund
Explore alternative ways to source funds and market your business through crowdfunding with Catherine Du Ploy and Justene Josias.
Date: 31 July, 4.30pm to 5.30pm
Location: MEST Incubator Cape Town, Albert Road, Cape Town, WC 7915
The Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and the future of impact finance
The session will begin with an overview of the exponential technology for impact finance space and will then move onto six TED-style talks by founders of exponential technology firms for impact. Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask the founders questions in a Q&A session which will conclude the night.
Date: 1 August, 6pm to 7pm
Location: MEST Incubator Cape Town, 4th Floor, Block A, Woodstock Exchange, 66 – 68 Albert Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town, Western Cape 7925
Startup Grind Cape Town five year birthday party with Simone Musgrave (Musgrave Gin)
Startup Grind Cape Town will be hosting Musgrave Gin founder Simone Musgrave at its free five-year birthday party.
Date: 1 August, 5.30pm to 8pm
Location: Workshop 17, 17 Dock Road, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, 8002
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: 1 August, 8.30am to 9.30am
Location: 1 Somerset Road, Green Point, Cape Town
The Blockchain Entrepreneurs Club South Africa is hosting its first Cape Town conference,Connecting the Blocks, sponsored by PwC. This will be an evening filled with presentations by leading industry experts, discussions and networking. The event is aimed at all levels of knowledge encompassing blockchain and entrepreneurship.
Date: 2 August, 6pm to 7.30pm
Location: PwC, 5 Silo Square, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
Johannesburg
12J Marketplace Conference 2018
Join radio and media personality Bruce Whitfield as he interacts with some of the largest and most attractive Section 12J investment opportunities.
Date: 2 August, 7.30am to 1.30pm
Location: ZAR X, 22 Kildoon Road, Bryanston
Thud (The Hookup Dinner) celebrates six years of walking the journey with entrepreneurs across Africa and the UK. If you want an invite, email info@thehookupdinner.com
Date: 3 August, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Open Workspaces, West Street, Sandown
Student Entrepreneurship Week (SWE) 2018
SEW 2018 will feature a super charged lineup of talks, student business clinics, master classes, interactive workshops, a pitching competition, displays, a market and more.
Date: 30 July to 3 August, 12pm
Location: Wits University (sessions at WITS Tshimologong Precinct, the Wits Library Lawns and the Grand Science Stadium)
Ghana
Attend a free workshop on Internet of Things (IoT) and gain intrinsic knowledge about the internet’s architecture.
Date: 4 August, 10am to 1pm
Location: BlueCrest University College, Cola Street, Accra, Greater Accra Region
Kenya
The African Investor Masterclass
The African Investor Masterclass is a series of business and investment training seminars. After successful events in Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland the African Investor Masterclass is finally coming to East Africa. This networking event that connects business leaders in Africa with their counterparts in the diaspora, to facilitate joint-ventures and business investment opportunities.
Date: 4 August, 9am to 3pm
Location: Nairobi Garage, Pinetree Plaza, Kaburu Drive, Off Ngong Road, Nairobi, Nairobi County
Nairobi social business happy hour
The social business happy hour gathers social entrepreneurs, impact investors and other allies in Nairobi for an evening of insights from the social enterprise sector and engineered serendipity.
Date: 2 August,5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: The Kijiji, Ngong Lane, Nairobi, Nairobi County
Developed by the Google Brain team of Developers and researchers, Tensorflow’s main concentration will be on Data or any other scientific data domain. Join this event to learn about the Tensorflow library and for an interactive demo of how to use it in an application.
Date: 3 August, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Moringa School, Ngong Lane, Nairobi, Nairobi County
Morocco
Startup Grind in partnership with Enactus ENCG Settat are hosting the first episode of the Meeting with Entrepreneurs series. The events aim to share information, and serve as a platform for networking and discussion.
Date: 2 August, 4pm to 6pm
Location: 3D CAT SARL 3D Printing, Casablanca
Nigeria
African Youth Entrepreneurship Summit 2018
This summit aims to create a space that brings different stakeholders to deliberate and charter an effective course of action for entrepreneurship across the continent in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Goal 8 — decent work and economic growth — and Agenda2063 of the African Union as Partner Youth Organisation in Africa.
Date: 31 July, 10am to 2pm
Location: EDO 30001
MEST Masterclass: Marketing and media insights to grow your startup
Swiss Ringier Africa general manager Leo Steigeler has successfully deployed and overseen effective marketing and media strategies for companies such as Jumia, Pulse, Jobberman, Cheki and Ringier Digital Marketing. Join him as he shares insights on how you can use marketing and media to grow your startup.
Date: 31 July, 6pm to 8pm
Location: MEST Incubator Lagos, 19B Adeyemi Lawson Street, Lagos, LA
This is a networking platform for people interested in Blockchain tech and evolving innovations around Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and its many applications in financial services and digital analysis.
Date: 3 August, 2pm to 6pm
Location: 8 Ayinde Giwa Street, off Ogunlana Drive Surulere, Lagos, LA
Cheetah Africa Launch: Fintech and Blockchain Conference
Cheetah Africa is a platform for venture capitalists and investors to access the best of African ideas and innovations, as well as for emerging startups with innovative and realistic ideas and projects in fintech and Blockchain to get exposed to the industry bigwigs.
Date: 3 August, 8am to 5pm
Location: BWC Hotels, 1228B Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos
StartupAnambra2.0 Pre-conference
StartupAnambra2.0 is an annual community event geared towards creating an enabling environment for innovative young people in, from, within and outside Anambra state to learn, connect, network, access opportunities and excel.
Date: 4 August, 9am to 3pm
Location: Chillis Restaurant, Opposite All Saints Cathedral back gate Onitsha, Onitsha, Anambra
Rwanda
MIT Global Startup Labs Rwanda Demo Day
For the past seven weeks, the students of Global Startup Labs Rwanda have been working on creating their own mobile apps to solve issues within the Kigali and greater Rwandan community. Come watch them pitch and demonstrate their ideas to potential investors and experts within the respective industries.
Date: 2 August, 1pm to 5.30pm
Location: Telecom House, 8 KG 7 Avenue, Kigali, Kigali City
Uganda
Wazihub is an innovation project which aims to accelerate open IoT and Big Data innovation in Africa by leveraging African entrepreneurs and startups developing cutting edge solutions to Africa’s problems.
If you are an innovator, entrepreneur , a group ,organisation, company or just an IoT enthusiast from Africa interested in finding solutions to problems directly affecting Africa using IoT and big data, this is for you.
Date: 4 August, 9am to 3pm
Location: Hive Colab, 90 Kanjokya Road, Kampala, Central Region
Zambia
The Ups and Downs of Starting and Growing an African Startup
Join Tolu Agunbiade of ALU Education as shares her experience supporting startups and growing her own startup, highlighting common trends, lessons learned, and things she wishes she did differently.
The aim of this session is to have an interactive and open conversation with existing and aspiring founders about the benefits and challenges of running a startup.
Date: 30 July, 6pm to 8pm
Location: BongoHive, Thabo Mbeki Road, Lusaka, Lusaka Province 10101
Esther Hsu Wang, COO and founding partner of IDinsight talks corporate culture and building strong people operations. IDinsight has quickly grown to six global offices in Asia, Africa, and the US. They’re working across 12 countries and are extremely proud of their work culture, impact track record and alumni achievements.
Date: 1 August, 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Location: Protea Hotel by Marriott Lusaka, Arcades, Lusaka, Lusaka Province 10101
