Africa 2.0 in partnership with Microsoft and Washington Based Ngo Startup weekend successfully held an entrepreneurship competition– STARTUP WEEKEND. The event which is a pilot was held at Microsoft South Africa Johannesburg from the 30th of November 2012 until the 2nd of December 2012.
In line with the Pan African outlook of Africa 2.0, this initiative will be rolled out across the African continent starting from April 2012 with the theme – STARTUP AFRICA. Winners can expect to receive expert advice and startup capital.
Startup weekend is a weekend long entrepreneurship competition were participants with business Ideas pitch to industry expacts, get feedback. Anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.
The winner of the event, a 21 years old university student took the judges by surprise with his cutting edge online portal aptly called book bay. Book bay is an online portal was University students can sell their used text books to other students.
Exhaustive research during the course of the competition proved that the business idea, although requiring minimal capital, has the potential to generate over $50,000 usd and year
In line with Africa 2.0’s goal of creating an enabling platform for African entrepreneurs to flourish, the event winner has since been allocated a slot in a business incubator where he will receive Furnished“plug and play” office space in a secure environment, shared resources such as reception, meeting facilities and internet access. Mentoring and coaching, access to professional service providers, access to business and skills development interventions, such as training in functional business disciplines and loans. More info will be available on www.africa2point0.org closer to the event.
