10 South African Founders Deepen Ties with Swiss Innovation Hub Tour and Entrepreneurial Training
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Team of South African entrepreneurs drew inspiration from a week-long Swiss business development camp, spanning workshops, coaching and startup visits in Basel, Lausanne and Zurich. Ten founders received advanced training in business plan modeling and investor pitching, from experienced entrepreneurs and startup experts.
The South African selection brought startups in AI, cosmetics, engineering, fintech, machine-learning, manufacturing, and medtech to innovation hubs across Switzerland. An intense program of expert-workshops, coaching, startup visits and networking was crowned with a public pitch contest held in Zurich alongside ten Swiss founders.
"The week has been a real eye-opener and has broadened my horizon in terms of how our technology has global relevance and could apply beyond South Africa," said pitch contest winner Tshidiso Radinne, adding that had been inspiring to also visit women-led companies. Radinne's startup, Raphta, applies machine-learning and computer vision to help South Africa's biggest water-infrastructure company find leaks. "I was impressed how Venturelab's trainers understood the context of entrepreneurship in Africa, and gave very honest and constructive feedback."
— Venturelab (@venturelab_ch) October 24, 2019
Winner Tshidiso Radinne of water-saving machine-learning startup Raphta rings the end of Swiss South African pitchfest w. embassy @tiaorgza @IntOfficeUnibas @SBFI_CH @EDA_DFAE @dsigovza @Switzerland_SA @venturelab_ch partners #vleadersSA pic.twitter.com/9nqa9gU859
Earlies Johann Paschalis, chargé d'affaires a.i. at the Embassy of South Africa to Switzerland had opened the pitchfest praising the links between the two country's science and technology institutions and industries. "The Swiss South Africa Business Development Programme is one of the strategic instrument in bilateral cooopation and has proven to have made a significant contribution over the years."
In March, 10 Swiss startups travelled to Cape Town and Johannesburg for an immersion experience in the South African market. The Swiss team met local experts from Invest South Africa, enjoyed industry visits, and exchanged with South African startups on local market entry strategies in their respective countries. At last night's pitchfest medtech entrepreneur Utku Gülan, whose Swiss startup Hi-D Imaging uses advanced scanning technology to help cardiologist select the ideal heat-valve for individual patients, reflected on his experience. "We found exactly what we wanted in South Africa -- the personalized program is very good."
The South African Venture Leaders to Switzerland is part of the Swiss South African Business Development Programme, managed by the University of Basel, in collaboration with the South African Technology Innovation Agency and operated by Venturelab. It forms part the Swiss South African Joint Research Programme mandated by Switzerland's State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI and South Africa's Department of Science and Innovation. The pitchfest held at Swisscom's piratehub, was supported by the SwissCham Southern Africa.
