A South African passionate about fostering an entrepreneurial mindset in the next generation is on the hunt for sponsorship to make a “Pop Idol meets Dragon’s Den”-style competition a reality.
Capetonian Alexander McLeod founded Water Berry in 2010 and runs the School Entrepreneurship Programme, now in its third year, around the Western Cape.
The first five-day School Entrepreneurship Conference was held at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in December last year, and McLeod now wants to turn that into an entrepreneur equivalent of the Maths and Science Olympiads.
He said: “In 2010, with unemployment statistics going up and graduates not finding jobs, I thought if we can teach kids how they can start and run their own businesses, how you need to be as a person, they might be able to create their own work.”
The first conference featured training days, workshops and pitches, with 100 learners attending.
One pupil walked away with ZAR2,000 (US$222) for his school feeding scheme business idea, which involved him collecting wasted food and turning it into compost and selling it.
McLeod said: “That made me think how many kids are we missing? How many have got business ideas which we can turn into business ventures?
“That is when I decided we need to create a platform. Your entrepreneurial business pitch platform, but for school kids.”
Mcleod said the blueprint for a School Entrepreneurial Olympiad has been fully drawn up and could be implemented in any province where he can secure funding.
The format will be similar to the Maths and Science Olympiads, but rather than children sitting tests they will be pitching business ideas.
Taking the Western Cape as an example, each school would submit a team of five pupils and the first round of pitches would take place in each of the province’s education circuits, with one winner chosen from each event.
This would result in 49 winners, which would then be brought down to 19 after eight education district events.
Those 19 winners, plus 10 wildcards would be offered places on the School Entrepreneurship Conference and subsequently 10 would be chosen to be taken into the incubation programme.
McLeod has projected the entire event would cost ZAR3.5 million (US$390,000) to stage and a sponsor could either get on board for the whole project or support one of its three components – the pitches, the conference or the incubator.
“If kids are exposed to this sort of thing at High School then that is beneficial,” he said. “If all those unemployed graduates were exposed to this sort of thing and learned about entrepreneurship, there is a chance they might not be sitting at home now with no job.”
