This year’s Cape Town Startup Week (CTSUW) kicks off on Tuesday (3 December) and will run until next Thursday (5 December) with 16 confirmed events (see this story).
The biggest event in Johannesburg this week is undoubtedly the Seedstars Africa Summit which takes place on Thursday (5 December).
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Elsewhere on the continent, Cairo will host Egypt’s first insurtech hackathon tomorrow. In Nigeria, Microtraction and Lagos Young Professionals Innovation Club will on Saturday (7 December) host a network event around what one must know when investing in startups.
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 the events are free and some will require booking in advance. Please click on the event names to find out more information.
Cape Town
Meditiation workshop for entrepreneurs
The Quiet Inside’s Mimi Cooper presents the perfect way to kick off Cape Town Startup Week – with reflection and quiet, imparting the most important skillset you will require to survive and thrive the exciting, exhilarating journey ahead.
Date: 3 December, 10am to 11am
Location: Workshop 17,
Join Nicola Weaver of South African startup iXperience for top entrepreneurship lessons from the iXperience Book Club.The iXperience book club is an internal programme for their employees and students, in which they read one business book and summarize for the team.
Date: 3 December, 12pm to 1pm
Location: Workshop 17,
Raw personal branding for entrepreneurs
How important is it to think about your personal brand? In this exciting session, Cape Town Startup Week is featuring two of South Africa’s most stylish personalities — Sir Vincent and Siya Beyile — to unpack the basics of branding, in the personal sense. Prepare to challenge your comfort zone and take a long, hard look at your own sense of style – and most importantly, how it impacts your bottom line.
Date: 3 December, 12.30pm to 2pm
Location: Workshop 17,
Startup Village is Cape Town Startup Week’s central hub of information, entertainment and activation.
Come and interact with top Cape Town-based startups, learn about the offerings of ecosystem enablers, sample the food and drinks from local brands, purchase tickets for upcoming CTSUW events, and celebrate entrepreneurship with entertainment from local musicians and entertainers.
Startup Village will be open all day Tuesday through Thursday on the first floor of Workshop17 Watershed.
Date: 3 to 5 December, 1pm to 10pm
Location: Workshop 17,
Content is the new business card
Leaving behind a book or sending a podcast link is a much better and more impact way to connect than merely leaving behind a business card. Hear from entrepreneurs on their individual experiences and content creation journeys and how it has supported their business endeavors.
Date: 3 December, 1.30pm to 2.30pm
Location: Workshop 17,
Investor readiness and pitching workshop
Exclusively for Cape Town Startup Week, serial entrepreneur Sandras Phiri, presents a workshop for startups and entrepreneurs: the Investor Readiness and Pitching Workshop.
Date: 3 December, 3pm to 5pm
Location: Workshop 17,
The Flip: Learning while doing a podcast (live recording)
Native New Yorker and South African resident, Justin Norman, recently launched a new project, The Flip — an editorial-style podcast exploring more contextually relevant insights fro entrepreneurs and investors changing the status quo in Africa.
Norman will sit down with Kandua CEO and co-founder Sayo Folawiyo for a live recording to discuss what they’ve learned and how podcasts are a great mechanism for active learning.
Date: 3 December, 3pm to 4pm
Location: Seminar Room A, Workshop 17,
Join three community builders , ULTRA South Africa co-founder and director Shaun Duwe, WeThinkCode_ co-founder Arlene Mulder and Afrikaburn director Sam Bendzulla to learn how to build a community.
Date: 3 December, 6pm to 8.30pm
Location: Seminar Room A, Workshop 17,
Future Females Founders Breakfast
Two female founders share their personal high & lows of 2019 and give some valuable insight into the entrepreneurial journey. If you are a founder yourself, or aspire to be one, you will be in good company.
Date: 4 December, 3pm to 4pm
Location:
Live an integrated life workshop & yoga for entrepreneurs
Learn about the 3 World Model where professional, organisational and private roles merge and how often, a neglect of being authentic in any of the three can have negative effects on your health and performance.
In this talk you will gain awareness understanding on embodying your authentic self in all three areas of your life to decrease stress, increase motivation and be more aligned both internally and externally.
Date: 4 December, 10am to 11am
Location:
Cape Town Startup Week 2019 features three of the most innovative and creative startup entrepreneurs from Khayelitsha Siki’s Koffee Kafe owner Sikelela Dibela, 18Gangster Museum CEO and founder Wandisile Nqeketho and Orgasmic Gawulo Restaurant co-founder Thulani Mguda.
Date: 4 December, 12.30am to 2pm
Location:
IP for startups: Appreciating your intellectual assets
Are you ready to take control of your IP? Cape Town Startup Week brings you a workshop on IP for Startups, courtesy of Silicon Cape and ENSafrica.
Date: 4 December, 1pm to 3pm
Location:
In this hour-long session, Capital CEO and Heavy Chef Foundation chairman Louis Janse van Rensburg, Glengarry shares lessons with startups on how to jump-start their business skills.
Creative, optimistic and pragmatic, this session weaves storytelling with empirical data to inspire entrepreneurs to re-imagine the way they learn.
Date: 4 December, 3pm to 5pm
Location:
Find out how a small business is built and what it means to be an entrepreneur in South Africa. At Yoco Meets each entrepreneur is given an opportunity to showcase their products to the audience, share their business journey and their plans for the future. This informal pitch is used to set the tone for the mentorship element that follows.
Date: 4 December, 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Location:
Startup Grind Cape Town hosts Mama Money co-founders Raphael Grojnowski and Mathieu Coquillon.
Date: 4 December, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location:
The five secrets to life & business success
Join Entrepreneur Jamal Sahib for a talk on the secrets to life and business success.
Date: 5 December, 1pm to 2pm
Location:
Applying data science to your business
Two data scientists — Ixio Analytics chief scientist and iXperience data science instructor Taryn Morris and Xineoh CEO Vian Chinner — break down what data science is and more importantly what you can do with it, even if you’re not a data scientist yourself.
Date: 5 December, 1pm to 2pm
Location:
SA’s Top 5 Most Exciting Startups
A lineup of extraordinary startup founders, standing on stage and revealing how they’re changing the world. This event is the final event of Cape Town Startup Week and forms part of the ‘First Thursday’ agenda.
Date: 5 December, 6pm to 8.30pm
Location:
Johannesburg
After travelling to more than 15 countries and scouting for the best startups from Africa, Seedstars World makes one last stop in Johannesburg to bring everyone together at the Seedstars Summit Africa 2019.
The summit will feature two private bootcamps for Seedstars World winners and an open event for everyone from the region.
Date: 3 to 5 December
Location: The Fox Junction, 14 Alexander St, Ferreiras Dorp, Johannesburg
Egypt
Join Egypt’s first ever Insurtech Hackathon.
Date: 1 December, 1pm to 6pm
Location: The Westin Cairo Golf Resort & Spa, Katameya Dunes, Road 90 New Cairo City, Katameya Dunes, Cairo
AUC Ventuer Lab Fall’19 Demo Day
Join AUC Venture Lab’s Fall’19 cohort as they pitch their business ideas.
Date: 3 December, 5.30pm to 10pm
Location: AUC Tahrir Square, 113 Al Kasr Al Aini, Ad Dawawin, Cairo Governorate
RiseUp Summit is one of the Middle East and North Africa’s top entrepreneurship events.
Date: 5 to 7 December
Location:The Greek Campus 171 Tahrir St., Bab El Louk, Cairo Or 28 Falaki St., Bab El Louk, Cairo
Eritrea
Startup Grind Asmara hosts Total Eritrea digital innovation and communication officer Daniel Kiflay who will talk about the potential of Eritrean startups as experienced in the Startupper of the Year 2018-2019 Competition in relation to global startups.
Date: 4 December, 1pm to 2.30pm
Location: Conference Room, College of Engineering & Technology, Mainefhi, Lower Campus, Asmara
Ghana
How to get traction for your product and startup in Accra
Experts at this Founder Institute workshop will help you learn how to gain traction for your product and how to kick off your startup’s journey.
Date: 3 December, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Orange Loft, UNFPA, Accra
Kenya
The Impact!Africa Social Entrepreneurship Summit mobilises, inspires, supports, and connects leading social entrepreneurs and key ecosystem players to accelerate innovative solutions to Africa’s most pressing challenges.
Hundreds of social entrepreneurs and stakeholders from education, healthcare, women empowerment, the creative economy, and the digital innovation spheres will gatherfor this event hosted by Ashoka Africa and the British Council.
Date: 4 to 5 December
Location: Kenya School of Monetary Studies, Off Thika Road, Next To De La Rue Ltd Mathare N Rd, Nairobi
Nigeria
Investing in startups: What you must know
Microtraction in partnership with Lagos Young Professionals Innovation Club will host this two-hour intimate, knowledge-sharing and networking event with entrepreneurs and potential investors.
Date: 7 December, 6pm to 7pm
Location: Flutterwave Inc, 8 Providence Street, Lekki, Lagos
Startup Grind Abeokuta hosts Yemsam Global Enterprises CEO Sunday Oso.
Date: 7 December, 10am to 2pm
Location: BluePectra Limited, Prohub Suite, 204 First Floor, 33 Salawu Olabode Avenue, Idi-Aba
Tanzania
Startup Grind Dar hosts Rocket Inc as well as 78 Inc owner Aashiq Shariff.
Date: 7 December, 3pm to 5pm
Location: 7th Floor Tanzanite Park, VictoriaDar es Salaam
Zimbabwe
Green Innovation Fair
Watch entrepreneurs working to reduce carbon emissions pitch their products and services for a chance to win $1000.
Date: 5 and 6 December, 9am to 1pm and 5pm to 9pm
Location: Impact Hub Harare
Featured image: Attendees at a Heavy Chef event (Heavy Chef via Facebook)
