Cape Town - South African Breweries’ KickStart Ignite programme, to be launched on Friday, will provide support and funding for “garage tinkerers” and other young innovators who can convince a panel that their schemes and dreams can be developed into viable businesses.
Participants will have just two minutes to pitch their concept to a panel of industry experts. Successful participants will be invited to a one-day “boot camp”, where experts will help them to refine their concept.
After this, a select few will be invited to take part in a six-month incubation, business mentorship and training programme where they will receive a monthly stipend and seed grant capital to launch their start-ups.
SAB KickStart Ignite is aimed at 18-35 year olds who have a product or idea aligned to the manufacturing or ICT sectors which makes use of one or more of the following materials: 3D printing, leather, wood, metal, laser and vinyl cutting, software design programs including CAD/CAM, and electronics including development of Internet of Things technology with Arduino and Raspberri Pi.
“SAB hopes to amplify and strengthen the ‘maker’ movement which embodies artisan skills by providing an enabling environment for young entrepreneurs to prototype and commercialise their ideas, creating sustainable enterprises that shift the paradigm from consumers to makers of innovative products, services and industries,” said SAB’s head of transformation and sustainability Mpho Sadiki.
SAB KickStart Ignite is one of three new enterprise development initiatives aimed at building on the strengths and successes of SAB KickStart, the brewer’s 20-year-old youth entrepreneurship programme. The programme was designed to help address the need to create sustainable jobs by supporting the development of high impact young entrepreneurs.
SAB said in a statement on Tuesday: “Since its establishment in May 1995, SAB KickStart has evolved into one of South Africa’s leading and most respected youth entrepreneurship development initiatives facilitated within the private sector.”
In its 20 years in operation, SAB KickStart has supported a total of 24 558 entrepreneurs, invested more than R90 million and helped to build 3 458 youth-owned businesses, which have created an average of 6.7 jobs each. It has also ensured the survival of many start-ups that might otherwise have failed.
SAB has said that an independent impact study done in 2013 found that at least 84 percent of businesses which participated in SAB KickStart were still in business after three years.
SAB KickStart Ignite will act as a pipeline for the second new initiative, SAB KickStart Boost, which aims to support existing youth businesses within key local industries that have the ability to create high volumes of jobs. The third initiative, SAB KickStart Elevate, is aimed at young established businesses requiring further acceleration in order to become suppliers to big business in South Africa.
“The new SAB KickStart model, we believe, will move the company’s support of small youth-owned businesses further in alignment with the country’s national objectives and goals to make more jobs available and encourage sustainable entrepreneurship as its driving force,” Sadiki added.
SAB KickStart Ignite is being launched in partnership with The Makerspace, House 4 Hack, the Innovation Hub, University of Limpopo, Central University of Technology Free State and the Tshwane University of Technology.
The first pitching event is being held in Durban on Friday, August 21. Enterprise development is one of the underlying imperatives of SAB Prosper, the company’s global sustainable development framework aimed at building strong local communities.
ANA