Entrepreneurship Development (UED)

UED is the only programme in the Western Cape wholly dedicated to growing the economy by: 1) developing, 2) facilitating 3)funding, 4) mentoring, and 5) monitoring a diversity of South Africans with strong entrepreneurial potential, drawn mainly from the unemployed 18-35 age sector. Once launched, UED will be called “The South African Academy of Entrepreneurship.” The Academy will fully embody the core principles of sustainability, sound business practice, and Ubuntu as it develops emerging entrepreneurs across a broad spectrum of industries, and as it establishes a multi-cultural model of business training through public/private partnerships that adds to SA’s economic growth and social well being.

Gone are the days that matriculants and graduates can leave school, study and get a job in a corporate. Yet ask Grade 12 pupils what they want to do once they finish school, and almost all say, “Study and get a job.” Few say, “Become an entrepreneur and start my own business.” The future sustainability of the country, requires entrepreneurs to be developed. The recent Global Entrepreneurial Monitor rated SA as “poor” in terms of entrepreneurial activity compared to many other developing countries.

While there are colleges and universities offering programmes with elements of entrepreneurship in them, there is no programme fully dedicated to developing entrepreneurs into successful long-term business owners.  Moreover, those few aspiring entrepreneurs that are able to attend and complete a programme are then faced with the enormous challenge of obtaining funding for their prospective business from banks that are risk averse, and application procedures for accessing funds from entities like Umsobomvu and Khula that are extremely difficult and off-putting to any inexperienced person.  Hence, the most difficult dilemma and stumbling block is actually getting the business started, and then growing it. The SA Academy of Entrepreneurship offers a holistic solution to all these challenges under one umbrella.  It will meaningfully contribute to the Western Cape’s, and eventually other Provinces, economic growth and social well being through a holistic model of identifying, training, accessing finance, coaching, mentoring and growing/building the business into the future in a sustainable and profitable manner.

The Academy will launch its first five-month training course in July 2007 with 200 students, grow to 500 students and two courses per year in 2008, and reach its ideal operating capacity of 1000 students in 2009 and beyond. Once fully developed in the Western Cape, it will roll out in the Eastern Cape, and then to other provinces. Its unique design will provide participants not only with practical training, but also with access to funding to start their businesses, plus sustained hands-on coaching/mentoring from experienced business practitioners in all aspects of starting and sustaining a successful business.  As a condition of participation, students will return 10 percent of their business profits to the Academy to support its continued operation.

Another of the Academy’s unique strengths is its active partnership network, which includes the South African Institute of Entrepreneurship. Among the highly credible organisations that will assist in the delivery of the formal training programme are: UCT’s Graduate School of Business/Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship; Raymond Ackerman Academy of Entrepreneurial Learning; TSiBA Education; University of Western Cape and Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

The Academy’s partners who will assist in its Access to Finance and its two Coaching/Mentoring components include: Enablis; Business Partners Limited; Business Trust; FNB, Rand Merchant Bank and other Banks, Umsobumvu Fund; Khula Fund; Cape Venture Partners; Enterprise Support; National Business Initiative; Progress Fund; and the Provincial Departments of Economic Development & Tourism and Public Works.