The Step-Up Technology Innovation competition has officially begun. It aims to give start-up concepts a platform to showcase their ideas with the hope of being selected to receive seed capital to inject into their business.
The competition is a partnership of the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) and Sasol's enterprise development entity, ChemCity. It will give innovators a platform to bid their businesses to capital investors.
Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, Martin Feinstein, MD of Traction, said the competition is looking for innovative ideas in the health and biotechnology; chemicals, mining and manufacturing; ICT; food and agriculture; energy; and the green environment sectors.
"Step-Up is a talent search for innovators who need coaching and guidance and, at the moment, we believe that SA is at the cusp of innovation with really brilliant ideas emerging," explained Feinstein.
The event comprised speakers from TIA, Sasol and Microsoft Bizspark, who are partnering to fund the event.
"Our objective is to intensify tech innovations from various spheres, as ideas come from customers, university students, science councils, state-owned entities and the community," said Muhammed Sayed, business development manager at TIA.
"We realised that since there's a large pool of ideas, some may not be able to make it beyond the start-up phase and we thought that having such a competition would enable us to identify that one spark that is different from the rest," he explained.
Sayed also mentioned that the competition looks to offer participants mentoring and business coaching, technology development infrastructure, skills development and assist with skills gap in biotechnology, ICT and mining sectors.
"We look to fund early concepts like the developing of the prototype to the technical development that venture capitalists (VCs) do not fund," said Sayed.
"Our emphasis is to push ideas into the market. TIA will also be playing a role in the early commercial phase, although at this stage VCs should be funding already," he explained.
According to Clifford de Wit, head of developer and platform evangelism, Microsoft SA, feasibility is one of the main challenges for start-ups.
"Some of the challenges for start-up ventures include feasibility, as the idea can be great but may not be feasible or profitable in the business sense. The other challenge for entrepreneurs includes understanding the market, economic system, entrepreneurship and government policies towards the SME industry," De Wit outlined.
"Four years ago, Microsoft Bizspark started a global programme for start-ups that provides access to software, tech support, assists with marketing and so far we've received more than 300 ideas and have injected over $60 000 into those start-ups," he continued.
According to Herman Berry, technology development and innovation manager, Sasol ChemCity, innovation is key to lifting SA's economy. He added that Sasol ChemCity aims to establish the SME businesses in the chemical and related sectors to develop supplier links into Sasol's value chain.
"As a business incubator, Sasol ChemCity will incubate SMEs that are totally independent of Sasol to render services to the community."
The competition is currently open to all innovative ideas and interested parties can log in and enter their details on: www.step-up.org.za.
"There are lots of innovative ideas without skills or resources to pull them through. We're looking at solving real problems by identifying whether the idea is marketable and can be scaled up to meet the demands of the market," Feinstein added.
"The competition will select 35 ideas from those submitted and ultimately will have 18 winners from the different categories," concluded Feinstein.
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