South Africa’s Shanduka Black Umbrellas (SBU), which runs business incubators targeting emerging entrepreneurs around the country, has relaunched its upgraded incubator in Cape Town and acknowledged two local businesses as part of its Enterprise Development (ED) Awards.
Shanduka Black Umbrellas offers black-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) office space and support services for a monthly fee.
Taking the top place in the Jobs Created and Best Performing Company category was Madambi Rambuda of Roswika Media, while Zubair Bester and Wardah Kleinsmith of The HR Mac were voted best SBU Ambassadors.
Roswika Media publishes a free quarterly science and mathematics magazine and The HR Mac provides payroll and human resources (HR) management systems
“My initial perception when someone talked about owning a business was that it was all about money and more money. That’s far from the truth. It is about hard work, passion and the determination to succeed and give something back at the same time while doing something you truly believe in,” said Rambuda.
Speaking at the opening, Western Cape Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism Alan Winde said: “The incubator concept works because entrepreneurs have access to shared services, decreasing input costs. This is key because input costs are an inhibiting factor for the majority of small enterprises.
“Business incubators complement our initiatives to support SMEs. We need to increase the number of businesses that survive beyond the crucial three-year mark to become established enterprises which are able to employ more people.”
Winde said since 2010 the Western Cape has supported over 11,000 SMEs and ZAR118 million (US$11.3 million) will be allocated to business development in the next three years.
Last year, Winde said he was confident the Western Cape was on track to become an innovation hub.
He said ICT is one of the province’s priority sectors, employing 30,000 people and adding ZAR3 billion (US$289 million) to the region’s annual GDP.
HumanIPO reported in February the opening of tech incubator SpringLab in Cape Town.
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