mLab Southern Africa (SA), the region's new incubator for entrepreneurs and innovators with a focus on mobile technology, has opened applications for membership.
The head office of the mLab SA will be officially opened at the Innovation Hub in Pretoria on 15 September, but already mobile developers and entrepreneurs with a start-up business, organisation or mobile idea are applying to become members.
The mLab SA provides incubation support to mobile developers and entrepreneurs through subsidised office space; training and accreditation on mobile technologies and entrepreneurship; business mentoring and coaching; business intelligence, testing of mobile apps and services in test bays; and organising regular events for networking and knowledge sharing.
mLab SA says it will also assist members in accessing finance in the form of grants, seed capital, angel investors or venture capital.
The organisation notes that members benefit from the shared services offered at the mLab SA, such as reception, Internet and test bays, as this allows entrepreneurs to lower their burn rate - how quickly they spend their start-up capital - and so extend the survivability of their ideas.
Steve Vosloo, the mobile impact evangelist of mLab SA, says the mLab SA and the recently opened mLab East Africa, in Nairobi, are the first of a number of mLabs to be unveiled around the world as part of the Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy programme, supported by infoDev (World Bank), the ministry of foreign affairs of the government of Finland, and Nokia.
mLab SA is also supported by the South African Department of Science and Technology, he adds. “While the head office will be in Pretoria, a number of satellite offices will be established throughout the region. A Cape Town satellite office is in the process of being established,” says Vosloo.
According to mLab SA, Southern Africa was chosen as a region to locate an mLab because of the enormous potential of mobile technologies for supporting business development, social development and job creation in the region.
In SA, Vosloo says, mobile penetration is around 100%, and 39% of urban South Africans are now browsing the Internet on their phones. Mobile phones touch almost every aspect of peoples' lives, and the potential for improving areas such as healthcare and education has already been successfully demonstrated, it adds.
mLab SA also reckons that while there exists an enormous mobile opportunity in the region, there are still challenges to creating a sustainable business or organisation in mobile. “Competition is stiff; the mobile landscape is highly uneven across different technologies, user groups and countries; and mobile developers are scarce and expensive.
“Added to that, a start-up business or organisation is very vulnerable. It needs business, technical and financial support, and can benefit greatly from acceleration and incubation.”
The mLab SA offers three types of membership - Community, which is free and which anyone can join, and Silver and Gold, for which interviews are conducted.
Silver and Gold members pay a fee to access the core services of the mLab SA at the facility in The Innovation Hub, and receive more structured support from the mLab SA team and its partners.
Support services will either be delivered directly by the mLab SA, or through external providers to which members will be pointed, such as the Bandwidth Barn's business mentoring programme.
Applications can be submitted via the mLab SA Web site, www.mlab.co.za/apply, where further information regarding membership can also be found.
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