DURBAN - Absa Group has announced its support of entrepreneurship through its partial funding of the 1000 Tech Entrepreneurs Programme.
The programme, undertaken by technology ecosystem Silicon Durbs, provides a structure in which entrepreneurs learn how to start and grow their businesses while identifying and solving industry and real-world challenges.
Andrew Davies, Digital Partnerships Ecosystem Lead at Absa Group, said, “This year has shown us more than ever, that large corporates should be supporting entrepreneurial ventures in order to create employment opportunities. Added to this, it is the fresh and innovative thinking of technology entrepreneurs that gives rise to the type of startups that solve real-world problems”.
“We’re hoping to stimulate a culture of technology entrepreneurship that can be copied in other African markets and prestigious supporters like Absa help us to bring this dream to life, while creating an ecosystem with stakeholders that are willing to collaborate, partner and support each other,” said Lindani Mkhize, founder of Silicon Durbs and campaign lead for the 1000 Tech Entrepreneurs Programme.
Absa is supporting phase two of the 1000 Tech Entrepreneurs Programme which consists of ideation bootcamps, that runs from November 2020 until March 2021, focusing on connecting industry challenges with participating entrepreneurs.
This stage involves those entrepreneurs that don’t necessarily have an initial idea, but rather just an interest in developing tech business solutions for particular industries.
The boot camps which runs over five days are hosted in different locations around South Africa and consist of value proposition design, product engineering sessions, brand development sessions, general sales skills, networking and pitching.
The 1000 Tech Entrepreneurs Programme is open to all South Africans and previous entrepreneurship experience is not a requirement.
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