Sunday Independent 2021-09-19

Wesley Diphoko wesley@fastcompany.co.za A GROUP of well-meaning and hard-working South Africans is working around the clock to make life easier for South African start-ups by developing a start-up act. They include SiMODiSA (Secretariat), i4Policy, Endeavor South Africa, Silicon Cape, Savca, Loudhailer and The Digital Collective Africa. Earlier this week they released a white paper which contains elements of the proposed act. The proposed act is a form of an invitation to South Africans to have their say about what can be done to enable local start-ups to grow without hurdles. What is contained in this proposed act is ideal and not so ideal, depending on who you are and your background. It is ideal in the sense that it seeks to create a common and legal definition of high-growth enterprises,…

YOUTUBE has announced that the YouTube NextUp programme will be available in Nigeria and South Africa. The programme is an opportunity for creators to take their content creation to the next level. Twenty creators with eligible channels will be selected to win a production stipend of $1 000 (about R15 000) to be used for the acquisition of production equipment to advance their YouTube careers. The selected creators will also have the opportunity to attend a week-long intensive “Creator Camp”, learn new skills and access support by the YouTube partnerships team. The YouTube NextUp programme is available to creators who are committed to advancing their YouTube careers and producing fresh and compelling content. Eligible channels for selection into the YouTube NextUp programme should have 10 000 to 100 000 subscribers…

Wesley Diphoko wesley@fastcompany.co.za ELON Musk has shown Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson how to do Space innovation with humility. Earlier this week, another batch of space tourists took off via SpaceX rocket. Organised and funded by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the Inspiration4 mission touts itself as “the first all-civilian mission to orbit” and represents a new type of space tourism. The four crew members are not the first space tourists this year. In the past few months, the world witnessed billionaires Branson and Bezos launching themselves and a lucky few others into space on brief suborbital trips. While there are similarities between those launches and Inspiration4 – the mission is being paid for by a billionaire and is using a rocket built by another – the differences are noteworthy. A…

BEN BIERMAN THE first five years in the life cycle of a startup are its most crucial. The formative years are for trial and error, this is when you get to experiment with marketing channels, cement your value proposition and finally, establish whether your predictions on market appetite for your product or service was accurate. The formative years are for trial and error, this is when you get to experiment with marketing channels, cement your value proposition and finally, establish whether your predictions on market appetite for your product or service were accurate. Unfortunately, as part one in this series explained, the majority of start-ups in South Africa fail within the first year. Most SMEs never really get off the ground, and it’s important to delve deeper into why…

Pali Lehohla IN 2010, NIGERIAN intellectual and former director of the African Institute of Economic Development and Planning Adebayo Olukoshi, and I were part of a team of four assigned to undertake a review of the Human Science Research Council. After providing an analysis of the problem, Adebayo concluded, to our amazement, that parts of the system were “uselessed”. He had turned an adjective into a verb. He explained how the term “uselessing” in Nigeria describes, in large part, the mismanagement and corruption that had come to define Nigeria as a country and a people in common parlance. South Africa having been the last to be liberated from colonial and apartheid domination in Africa has had major benefit of learning from the 60-year experience of those that got independence…

Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za Over 2 000 a year thoroughbred racing and show-jumping horses retired when performance levels wane fall through the cracks to the informal market where they hew wood, scrap metal and water carts to a secondary billions rands market that does not realise its potential. This is as the country’s climatic conditions and superior horse breeds have borne an international market that takes at least 20 000 foals and full-grown horses to stables in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Hong Kong, Scotland and other areas in need of the traits and genetics at about R500 000 a pop. Allister Jack, an Equine and Equestrian Specialist assigned under a special equity programme of the Council of Equine and Equestrian Professionals South Africa (CEEPSA), said the organisation has started…