DURBAN - A University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) entrepreneur student has made it to the finals of the Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) national Entrepreneurship Intervarsity Challenge to be held in Pretoria in November.
Trianne Amarchund, who is currently enrolled for a Master’s degree at UKZN’s Centre for Communication and Media Studies, will be competing with counterparts from other provinces.
In a statement today, UKZN said Amarchund was placed first in the existing social impact category at the KwaZulu-Natal rounds where she competed with students from sister universities, Durban University of Technology, Mangosuthu University of Technology and the University of Zululand.
“Reaching the finals for the EDHE competition feels surreal. I’ve always wanted to represent my university and province at a national level, I just never thought it would be business-related,” she said.
The student entrepreneur is the owner and creator at LaeltheLabel, a novelty crayon business.
“The non-toxic, textured crayons have unique educational value in that they are not just for art, but can also be used as learning and teaching tools for imaginative play, learning through play and cognitive development activities,” said the statement.
Amarchund was one of the student entrepreneurs on the Enspire Enterprise Accelerator Programme, an initiative of UKZN’s InQubate aimed at incubating UKZN students who owned businesses, it said.
The Intervarsity Challenge is an initiative of the EDHE, a programme of the University Education Branch of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET).
The competition is funded through the DHET’s University Capacity Development Programme and is supported by Universities South Africa (USAf) and its partners, the Allan Gray Orbis and SAB Foundations.
THE MERCURY