Retro Rabbit Group wins Softstart contest

By Rodney Weidemann for SoftstartBTI

Johannesburg, 20 Apr 2004

The victors in the recent Softstart business plan competition - held for Honours students in the Computer Science department at the University of Pretoria - are the Retro Rabbit Group (RRG), a Pretoria-based research-driven software development company.

Softstart is a technology and business incubator located on the CSIR Campus in Pretoria that assists innovative, early stage software entrepreneurs with mentoring and support in the strategy and practice of growing a sustainable business.

"The aim of the annual Softstart competition is to help strengthen the entrepreneurial buzz within academic institutions," says Softstart CEO Ben Zaaiman.

He says the competition is also about encouraging entrepreneurship as an alternative to job seeking and making entrepreneurs aware of the immense opportunities that are available to them to help kick-start their businesses.

"Winning this competition is truly a pleasant surprise, and the generous prize money of R10 000 and four months of incubation services will most definitely make a huge difference in the growth and development of RRG," says the company's information manager, Theodor Danzfuss.

"We believe that RRG's dedication to academic research and its application of knowledge to existing and/or emerging commercial problems is what sets us apart from our competitors."

The RRG portfolio of services includes research and development, application and development of mobile technologies, Internet solutions, business solutions management and hardware and infrastructure components.

"What makes RRG an ideal winner in such a competition is the fact that the business is already in existence and hence stands to benefit substantially from the cash injection and mentoring that it will receive from Softstart," says Dr Anthon Botha of the University of Pretoria.