What kind of tech idea could disrupt the African continent?
This was the question the “South Africa’s next tech hero” programme asked entrepreneurs to answer with a pitch.
The programme was launched in June by 1GIANTleap’s Moniek van Erven and technology partner VSpace’s Vinu Nair. Entrepreneurs from Johannesburg and Cape Town were invited to pitch their ideas.
The purpose of the programme was for the start ups to take their wild idea to a validated business model, after a 12-week boot camp with mentors.
Last week, after eight tech heroes were invited to pitch their ideas in true shark tank style, the men who created the iSpani platform took home the grand prize.
The team has already made R150000 from their idea.
“We founded a research company in 2016 where we were working with a Swedish company - Universal Avenue - but it only did digital products in upmarket areas.
"We thought they were providing a lot of quality goods, yet there are a lot of markets that need the goods but aren’t exploited and can benefit from working by distributing the goods. So why not make a platform to help people from the townships, where we are from? That’s how the idea came about,” said Patrick Machekera, a final year accounting student at UCT.
Machekera and his business partners - Prince Nwadeyi, a BCom economics and marketing student and Ntandoyenkosi Shezi, a BSc Finance student - decided to start iSpani to empower their communities.
“It’s a decentralised marketing and sales platform that seeks to help communities by empowering people to become ambassadors with our app, and also allowing them to market and brand companies' products or services by using themselves as a medium of advertising.”
Machekera said that meant that if companies needed to sell products in unreachable areas, they would be able to use people who would network as the companies' sales and distribution channels.
“So with the app, if you are a brand or company and you need to market your goods or do dipstick research, there is a portal that opens up and you log in to the site and set up your details and upload pictures, and that information is communicated to our brand ambassadors.
"They are then trained on that information and go out and retrieve the information you need: they go out and market the product.
"The best thing is that they do it in real time, so if they can get a contact detail from someone and put it on the app, then you can follow up that feed.”
Machekera said if the sale was good, the ambassador could sell it and get people’s reactions and perceptions about the product. He said they had done a month of research with businesses on how they would want their products sold.
As the winners of South Africa’s next tech hero, the team would be heading to Silicon Valley in San Francisco to meet investors.
The judging panel was made up of entrepreneurs, specialists and investors, Llew Claasen (a partner at Newtown Partners), Matthew Barclay (MD at Meltwater Africa), Clive Butkow (CEO at Kalon Venture Partners), Professor Barry Dwolatzky (founder of Tshimologong) and Stephen Newton (ex-head of Google SA).
The next call for entrepreneurs will be in October, and the programme will start in January 2018.