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Top startup events in South Africa, Africa you should know about this week [04/12/2017]
Looking to get into the South African startup scene or catch up on some of your skills? Well, you’ve come to the right place. There are loads of competitions, networking sessions and workshops happening around South Africa and the rest of the continent (namely Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana) that we’ve rounded up to make your life a bit easier.
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.
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
Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Cape Town 2017
Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED), celebrated globally on 19 November each year, is a UN recognised day on which the work of women entrepreneurs is observed and discussed.
A panel of successful local female business owners will tackle how they feel policymakers, the private sector, civil society and indeed the public could help to uplift women in business.
Date: 5 December, 9am to 11am
Location: Liberty Regional Office Cape Town, The Estuary Precinct Century Boulevard, Century City, Cape Town
Rise Cape Town is hosting office hours with three mentors, namely: Barclays Africa head of Cape Town Development Alwyn Van Wyk, Omnesient founder Jon Jacobson and Capital Idea Consulting founder Sarah Rice.
The mentoring will be held in 45-minute sessions in the Rise auditorium.
Date: 5 December, 10 am to 4.15pm
Location: Rise Cape Town, 66 Albert Road, Woodstock Exchange Building, Block B, 5th Floor, Cape Town
Singularity University Cape Town Chapter
Join the Singularity University Cape Town Chapter in collaboration with KATO for a discussion on the future of manufacturing.
At the event you will hear from leaders in product development and additive manufacturing. In attendance will be Barracuda Holdings co-founder Rob Steltman, Lumkani co-founder Samuel Ginsberg, and Rapid 3D co-founder David Bullock.
Date: 6 December, 6pm to 8.30pm
Location: Workshop 17, 17 Dock Road, The Watershed, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
Access Silicon Valley: The art of scaling – Making the transition from startup to scale-up
This session will work through the top 10 challenges entrepreneurs face when making the transition from startup to scale-up and identify what you need to do differently.
Date: 6 December, 6.30pm to 9pm
Location: Rise Cape Town, 66 Albert Road, Woodstock Exchange Building, Block B, 5th Floor, Cape Town
Help your business grow and be successful through Rise Cape Town’s office hours. Rise is partnering with local companies to give you complimentary advice and guidance on your startup.
This week join Stephan Viollier and Eitan Stern, attorneys at Legalese. The two are experts in trademark, intellectual property and legal research.
Date: 6 December, 8.30 am to 11 am
Location: Rise Cape Town, 66 Albert Road, Woodstock Exchange Building, Block B, 5th Floor, 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: 6 December, 8.30am to 9.30am
Location: 1 Somerset Road, Green Point, Cape Town
Now that summer is back in Cape Town, it’s time for the Entrepreneurs Braai. This is an informal get together to eat and network with other entrepreneurs, and featuring guest speaker on the event.
Date: 6 December, 6pm to 9pm
Location: The CoworKite Office, 39 Blaauwberg Road, Table View, Cape, Town
Startup Funding 101: How to raise money for your idea in Cape Town
This is a beginner fundraising workshop which will provide practical, step by step advice, and feature talks from VCs and Angels. Learn expert tips, big pitfalls to avoid, what investors are looking for, how equity works, and more.
Date: 6 December, 6.30pm to 9.30pm
Location: Sisco House, Suite 5 (or EduOne), 17 Shelley Road, Salt River, Cape Town
Startup Grind: Let’s talk Bitcoin with Llew Claasen (Bitcoin Foundation)
This week Startup Grind hosts Lllew Claasen, co-founder of venture capital firm Newton Partners and executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Date: 7 December, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: Workshop 17, 17 Dock Road, V & A Waterfront, Cape Town
Johannesburg
Startup Grind : Agile Innovation Projects & Mobile with Derrick Kotze (mLab)
Startup Grind hosts Mobile Applications Lab (mLab) Southern Africa CEO and executive director Derrick Kotze.
Kotze has facilitated the development of the regional mobile solutions economy and consulted on numerous mobile innovations and programmes for public and private sector organisations as well as small businesses.
Date: 5 December, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: Standard Bank Hatfield Incubator (Inside Standard Bank Branch), 440 Hilda Street, Hatfield, Pretoria
Startup Grind: Year end party for entrepreneurs with Rapelang Rabana
Join Rapeleng Rabana — who was recently honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for 2017 and featured on the cover of the Forbes magazine — for this year end party for entrepreneurs.
Rapeleng’s journey began when she became the founding CEO of Yeigo, which is an innovative startup company that helped develop some of the world’s earliest mobile Voice over Internet Protocol applications in the year 2006.
Date: 6 December, 5.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: Standard Bank Hatfield Incubator (Inside Standard Bank Branch), 440 Hilda Street, Hatfield, Pretoria
Egypt
Join Enpact — a non-profit organisation which aims to empower entrepreneurs — at the official launch of Startup Meter, a Startup Friendliness Index (SFI) measuring entrepreneurial ecosystems with a focus on emerging markets (Accra, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Nairobi, Rabat, Tunis).
Date: 5 December, 7.30pm
Location: Startup Haus Cairo, 37 Talaat Harb, Qasr an Nile, Cairo Governorate
Kenya
The African Blockchain opportunity
Join some of Africa’s leading blockchain experts, namely: EtherAfrica founder Lamne Diallo, Bithub Africa founder John Karanja, and Point50 Capital CEO Apollo Eric as they discuss opportunities in the Blockchain.
Topics for the event include initial coin offerings (ICOs), how to harness the Blockchain to its fullest potential and the Kenyan blockchain ecosystem.
Date: 8 December, 6pm to 9pm
Location: Metta Nairobi, Belgravia Suite 6A, 14 Riverside, Nairobi
iHub Women in Entrepreneurship Series: Money matters
Since September the iHub has been running a women in entrepreneurship series dubbed #GetInAndGetIt targeting early stage female entrepreneurs. The series continues this month with a focus on money matters.
Speakers at this week’s event include HEVA Fund finance and investment manager Maureen Wakiuru Njuguna and Step Stone founder Danielle Anderson.
Date: 8 December, 8am to 12pm
Location: iHub, 6th Floor Senteu Plaza(Junction of Galana Road and Lenana Road), Nairobi,Nairobi County
Story Time: Startup Grind Success Session
Startup Grind Nairobi will this week celebrate and appreciate community members and past speakers who have been inspired and helped other entrepreneurs by listening to the stories of those they have helped.
Date: 8 December, 6pm to 9pm
Location: Metta Nairobi, Belgravia Suite 6A, 14 Riverside, Nairobi
Nigeria
MEST Lagos Tech Conversations: How cryptocurrency can enable Africa’s entrepreneurs
MEST tech conversations are centered around deep, unrestrained and intellectual discussions about trends and relevant topics in the global tech ecosystem and their applications for Africa’s entrepreneurs and businesses.
Moderators for this event include Sam Uduma of Supergeeks, Timi Ajiboye of Bitcoin Africa and Nena Nwachukwu of BitPesa.
Date: 6 December, 6pm to 8.30pm
Location: MEST Incubator Lagos, 19b Adeyemi Lawson Road, Ikoyi Lagos, Lagos
Shell LiveWire Nigeria Accelerator workshop
The Shell LiveWIRE Nigeria accelerator workshop, bootcamp and pitch event is aimed at scaling-up high performing entrepreneurs in the energy sector.
LiveWIRE is a Shell youth social investment development programme that aims to help young Nigerians between the ages of 18 to 35 explore the option of starting their own business as a viable career option and thereby create employment.
Date: 8 December, 8am to 4pm
Location: Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Port Harcourt, RV
Startup Anambra is a local community of startup founders, tech oriented entrepreneurs, developers, investors and tech enthusiasts who are passionate about building a vibrant tech entrepreneurship ecosystem in Anambra.
Date: 9 December, 9am to 4pm
Location: Geogold Hotels, Awka, Anambra
Uganda
Organized by Hive Colab, Swarm Summit is a gathering of the top CEOs of Uganda’s innovative tech companies, hackers, and tech fans for a deep dive into Uganda’s tech and business scene.
The two-day summit will feature speakers from government ministries, the telecoms sector, and the startup ecosystem.
Date: 7 December to 8 December, 9am to 9pm
Location: The Square, Third Street, Kampala
Featured image: Tech.Co via Flickr (CC 2.0 BY-SA 2.0, resized)
