THE SA Innovation Summit has brought together a group of industry leaders to increase awareness about the benefits of having a start-up act by unpacking prevailing concepts about the difference between small businesses and start-ups.
Last week, the proposed SA Start-up Act was launched officially by SiMODiSA and partners. As part of unveiling the latest findings and plans towards the development of a proposed South African Start-up Act, a call has been made to President Cyril Ramaphosa to unleash the growth and innovation inherent in the country’s entrepreneurs and youth.
These findings, gathered over the past six months via desktop research, focus groups and research contributed by the World Bank (one of the main sponsors of the research), provide a holistic overview of the problems affecting the ability of start-ups to establish, grow and scale in South Africa.
The findings, which have been collated into a position paper, suggest that innovation-driven start-ups with a turnover of less than R100 million be exempted from the limitations of existing policies and the red-tape that constrains their growth as well as their ability to contribute to job creation. Doing so will accelerate the socio and economic spill-over of such start-ups to the rest of South Africa.
SiMODiSA vice-chairperson and SA Start-up Act steering committee chairperson Matsi Modise and Stephan J Lamprecht, founder of southern Africa-based management consultancy VS Nova, as well as Michael Ehst from the World Bank will be on the panel chaired by Ashraf Garda at the SA Innovation Summit in Cape Town on September 21.
IOL Tech