Get in the Ring, an international business competition, will be hosting its second annual challenge as South African businesses compete for top honours and funding opportunities.
This highly contested 'Olympics for start-ups' is offering a last opportunity for innovative and new businesses with a proven business case to enter before the end of this week.
The competition seeks entrepreneurs across all sectors namely from the medical, environmental conservation and ICT industries, who have products or services that can be scaled internationally. The start-up must have an innovative and scalable business model and it must be no older than eight years in order to qualify for entry.
Bernice Robberts, project manager for Get in the Ring (GITR), says the competition aims to introduce entrepreneurs to funding opportunities and to give them a platform to showcase their innovations to a global audience.
"The finalists will also get a free evaluation of their business from Equidam, a platform for business valuation, where they will be equipped with essential skills needed to grow the value of their business," she says.
Funding for finalists
One of the finalists, Sebastian Daniels from Cape Town, invented an online mobile system called Stokvella which looks to eradicate the current challenges within the stokvel market.
"The system will allow stokvel users to see how much they`ve contributed, when their payments are due and how much they are owed at the pay-out date based on their monthly contributions. It will also allow members to observe the interest rate/returns earned on their contributions," he says.
Another finalist from Johannesburg, James Sands, says he entered the competition with the hope of receiving funding to market his latest invention, an iMORPH three-dimension app that lets anyone create their own 3D illusions.
"In the future I would like to see graffiti artists painting live at art festivals and for brands to create hype at events using my app." The app is available on Apple and Android stores.
Entries still open
Robberts says that GITR initially received more than 250 entries in South Africa alone. The entries were then scaled down to 18 and from there on, there will be only six chosen finalists.
Although the competition takes place in 80 countries worldwide, the start-up Olympics was established in South Africa by the REAL Entrepreneur Institute in partnership with the Dutch Embassy, North West University Vaal, The Innovation Hub, Heineken and Silicon Cape. The city finalists from Western Cape, North West and Gauteng will go through to the national finals on 18 and 19 November 2015.
The deadline for entry is Friday 6 November. For further information, to enter as a wild card or to nominate a start-up go to http://www.realsuccess.net/gitr/
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