Winners of inaugural Total Startupper of the Year Award

The competition, run in 34 African countries, aimed to find young people up to the age of 35 years who had a concept or a business with less than two years of operational experience.

Winners

The first prizewinner is Nkazimulo Applied Sciences, started by Bathabile Mpofu, who received R600,000 cash to carry out her vision. She was awarded the first prize after a 10-person and diverse panel of judges deemed her idea of improving the interaction between secondary school students and the concept of science outstanding. Her business aims to extend the relationship of science from the classroom to the home and create an understanding of how science is incorporated in daily life.

Mpofu draws inspiration from her own experience in high school. “I attended a ‘disadvantaged’ secondary school in KwaZulu-Natal and we did not have any science kits. I wanted to pursue a career in chemistry and my first year in tertiary education showed me that I was in way over my head. Not because I did not have the ability, but I would be playing catch-up my whole tertiary life.” She did not have exposure to the basic elements of science; meaning the more complex elements of the course would not translate as they should for her. “I want to change this for all students in South Africa.”

The second prize went to Senovate, a business founded by a young man from Mpumalanga, Themba Sehawu, who has come up with a fruit-picking machine that aims to increase safety and efficiency when harvesting for the large agriculture sector in South Africa. Senovate walked away with R350,000.

The third prize went to Oyena Gwebityala of ConnectMed for his business, which aims to bring professional medical assistance to patients on their phones. He received R250,000.

The winners emerged from a pool of ten finalists who spent a week at the Gordon Institute of Business Science honing their entrepreneurial skills before appearing in front of the panel of judges. The budding entrepreneurs also got a chance to get some solid advice from the project’s patron, Siyabonga Xuza.