Samsung mentoring 19 SA startups as part of employee volunteer programme

Samsung SA has announced that it will mentor up to 19 South African startups at a bootcamp in Cape Town this week as part of its employee volunteer programme.

The initiative is also part of Samsung’s Global Startup Acceleration Programme which is being carried out in Indonesia, Malaysia, India and South Africa.

In all the mentorship will benefit 80 selected startups from around the world. In addition, five of the 80 startups will be invited to visit Samsung’s global headquarters in Seoul, South Korea.

In a statement on Tuesday (11 September), Samsung SA director for the business innovation group and corporate affairs Hlubi Shivanda, said the company is proud to partner with the Small Entreprise Development Agency (Seda) and non-profit Nangila to provide infrastructure and mentorship to fledgling businesses.

Up to 34 employees from Samsung’s global headquarters have volunteered to mentor 19 South African startups in a four-day bootcamp that ends tomorrow

“We believe this can be the catalyst that helps the entrepreneurship ecosystem grow,” said Shivanda.

In all 34 employees from Samsung’s global headquarters have volunteered to mentor 19 startups over a four-day bootcamp that concludes today (13 September).

The 19 participants are today set to showcase their business models to venture capital firms and a panel consisting of Samsung and Seda representatives. Casel Mathale, the Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, is expected to be at the event.

The 19 companies taking part in the bootcamp are: GrowBox, Picadoo, iThemba Curios, Zaro Projects, Skumba Organics, Langa Mountain Enterprises, Phaya Cycles, Jilliana, Dine With, Bass Beats, Mobcow, Origins Revolution Skincare, MiDO Technologies, Swiftstare Technology, APPtitude Solutions, Smartie Suitcase, Innovo Networks, Phoenix Irrigation, and WordSense.

The selected companies include those with solution in areas such as cloud data security, artificial intelligence (AI), information management, augmented and virtual reality, health care and the Internet of Things (IoT).

The bootcamp — Samsung South Africa said is part of its ongoing mission to address the critical technical and engineering skills shortage and demonstrate its commitment to enterprise and supplier development — will help participants better understand the challenges they face developing their products and services.

The bootcamp participants are set to benefit from the Samsung volunteers experience and expertise in a number of areas.

These include among others, B2B market research, pricing strategies, IoT strategic planning, AI, cloud, data, strategic investments and planning, databases, machine leaning algorithms, Android programming, health care businesses, computer vision technology and biomedical engineering.

Featured image: Samsung South Africa head office ( Samsung South Africa via Twitter)