In Cape Town this week, come hear Bevan Ducasse who founded wiGroup at the age of 23 and then built the SA fintech into a global mobile tech company.
Then just six months after netting investment from Virgin, wiGroup’s CFO resigned amidst reports of financial mismanagement, and the company had to make some major restructuring decisions.
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There was talk of the company not surviving this crisis. But Ducasse and the company have bounced back. Come hear how.
Elsewhere on the continent, the two-day Africa 3.O insurtech conference kicks off tomorrow (15 July), while on Wednesday (17 July) AfricArena arrive in Cairo for the eighth stop on their tour.
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
Ntombie Nonxuba at Startup Grind
Startup Grind Khayelitsha will host Ntombie Nonxuba, founder and director of Rise Uniforms, a factory that supplies quality safety clothing, uniform, corporate wear and complementary garments based in Teguka Business Park, Philippi Industrial.
Date: 20 July, 10am to 1pm
Location: Bandwidth Barn Khayelitsha, Lookout Hill Village 1 South, Cape Town
An evening with wiGroup’s Bevan Ducasse
Join this LifeCheq event to attend a talk by Bevan Ducasse who founded wiGroup in 2007, at the age of 23. Over the last 12 years, WiGroup has become a global mobile tech company that has processed over R4 billion in transactions.
Then just six months after netting investment from Virgin, wiGroup’s CFO resigned amidst reports of financial mismanagement, and the company had to make some major restructuring decisions.
There was talk of the company not surviving this crisis. But he and the company have bounced back.
Date: 16 July, 6pm
Location: The Radisson Hotel, The Waterfront, Cape Town
Connect eCommerce Summit 2019 – CPT
Following the success of the first Connect eCommerce Summit in 2018, Shopify and uAfrica are back for Connect 2019.
Along with other major players in the South African eCommerce field, the summit aims to bring you the industry experts, the insights, skills and knowledge to establish, grow and improve your online store.
Date: 18 July, 2pm to 7pm
Location: WhiteSpace, Roof Top, 97 Durham Avenue, 7925 Salt River, Cape Town
How to Avoid Digital Disruption
Join John Deighton, a Harold M Brierley Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School as he looks at how incumbent banks, insurers, pharma companies and even universities have to look to their architectures to survive in the face of voracious scope expansion by upstarts.
Date: 16 July, 5.30pm to 8pm,
Location: UCT GSB Academic Conference Centre, 2nd Floor, 8 Portswood Road, Green Point
Johannesburg
How to make Whatsapp work for media
Jamlab, in partnership with the Civic Tech Innovation Network, will be host a panel discussion on ways to make WhatsApp work for media.
Koketso Moeti, founding executive director at Amandla.mobi!, Phillip de Wet, associate editor at Business Insider South Africa and Kate Wilkinson, acting deputy chief editor at Africa Check will be on the panel.
Date: 16 July, 8am to 10am
Location: Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, 41 Juta Street, Braamfontein
Briefing on the latest cybersecurity trends
Join the SensePost team for a half-day briefing on the latest cybersecurity trends, hacks and tools.
Date: 16 July, 9.30am to 1pm
Location: The Venue, Green Park, 20th Floor, 3 Lower Road, Johannesburg, Sandton
Connect eCommerce Summit 2019 – JHB
Following the success of the first Connect eCommerce Summit in 2018, Shopify and uAfrica are back for Connect 2019.
Along with other major players in the South African eCommerce field, the summit aims to bring you the industry experts, the insights, skills and knowledge to establish, grow and improve your online store.
Date: 16 July, 2pm to 7pm
Location: Focus Rooms, The Core, Cnr Leeuwkop and Kikuyu Road, Johannesburg
Fuckup Nights is a global movement and event series that shares stories of professional failure. Impact Hub Joburg, is inviting speakers to get up in front of a room full of strangers to share their own professional fuckup.
Date: 17 July, 6pm to 8pm
Location: Impact Hub Joburg, 9 Walters Street, 158 Jan Smuts, 4th Floor, Johannesburg
Nigeria
This year’s the third Coworking Conference which takes place in Lagos is themed “Coworking – Unveiling the Sharing Economy” as we unveil the sharing economy model – what it is, how it works in different sectors, and how you too can leverage on it to grow and scale your business.
Date: 18 July, 8am to 5pm
Location: TBC
The TechSpark Workshop is a programme for girls aged eight to 18 years and helps to combat stereotypes and tackle the technology gender divide.
It provides a high quality and exciting environment where the girls learn to create useful technologies for everyday living through programming, mobile application development, graphics designing, and digital animation programming.
Date: 18 and 19 July,
Location: 5B Adedeji Close, off Opebi Road, Ikeja, Lagos
Join Startup Grind Lagos this week where Noella Ekezie, the founder of award-winning integrated creative, brand, digital and marketing communications agency Ellae will take to the stage.
The theme for this month’s event is “Personal Branding for Entrepreneurs” and Ekezie will be joined by social media and marketing guru Kayode Abass.
Date: 20 July,
Location: 5B Adedeji Close, off Opebi Road, Ikeja, Lagos
Kenya
Africa 3.O is the first conference out of London organised by MarketMinds in partnership with the UK government’s Great campaign.
The two-day event will provide the first platform for tech start-ups in the East African Region specifically in health, agriculture and frontier InsurTech to collaborate with incumbents to seek solutions for challenges facing the insurance sector around insurance inclusion.
Date: 15 and 16 July
Location: Radisson Blu Upper Hill, Nairobi
Sycamore Perspective presents a two-day clinic during which international guest speaker Heath McSolvin will bring his insights, drawn from his vast experience raising resources for development globally.
Date: 16 and 17 July
Location: Kayana Chania Avenue, off Argwings Kodhek Road, Nairobi
The Africa Women in Technology aims to provide hands-on tech workshops, information and discussions about education, entrepreneurship, careers in tech, and networking opportunities with other women in various aspects and careers in technology.
Date: 19 and 20 July
Location: Michael Joseph Centre, Nairobi
Social media marketing strategies
In this two-hour workshop discover and learn how to transform your social media presence and data to potential leads that will boost your sales to the next level.
Date: 19 July
Location: Kilimani Road, Nairobi
Egypt
AfricArena arrives in Cairo for the eighth stop of their tour.
The aim is to give the best Egyptian entrepreneurs the opportunity to share their business model and convince the expert judges why they should be advanced to pitch at the grand finale in Cape Town, South Africa.
Date: 17 July, 2pm to 6pm
Location: Ideaspace, 124 Othman Ibn Affan St, Cairo Governorate, Egypt
Featured image: Delegates pictured at the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit 2018 held in Cape Town in November last year. (Robert Cable)
