MEC sets entrepreneurs a challenge

ENTREPRENEURS must look at finding ways to solve challenges, such as gangsterism in their communities, and use the Western Cape government’s R3-billion broadband roll-out to full effect to grow their business.

This was the message Economic Opportunities MEC Alan Winde gave to business start-up owners after listening to some of them present their business concepts at the Barn Khayelitsha yesterday.

The Department of Economic Development and Tourism is helping 40 entrepreneurs to develop their ideas, and many of them are looking for ways to meet the challenges in their communities

Winde’s visit was part of a month-long programme focusing on innovation in the Western Cape.

The Barn Khayelitsha provides a space for young innovators from Khayelithsha and Mitchells Plain to work on their concepts.

Winde said the idea behind the Bandwidth Barn concept was to find solutions to problems.

He told entrepreneurs that if they could find the biggest problem in the world and solve it, they could build the biggest company. He said this thinking could be applied to almost anything, and entrepreneurs needed to collaborate and form partnerships, because they could not do things on their own.

Winde said he wanted to leave them with a challenge: coming up with security concepts to solve gangsterism in communities. “I would like to put that challenge to you as to how do we solve them.”

Winde said to ensure that entrepreneurs can participate in the global economy, the Cape IT Initiative, which is co-funded by the Western Cape government, is providing entrepreneurs with incubation space at the Bandwidth Barn in Woodstock and Khayelitsha.

He said 50 innovative entrepreneurs were working at the Barn Khayelitsha to solve the challenges in their communities.

The initiative forms part of the Western Cape government’s 10-year broadband roll-out programme, a R3bn investment.

“Because new technology is a stepping stone into the economy, we are also building partnerships to extend affordable internet access to residents in every corner of this province. Our public access wi-fi project with Neotel has seen the installation of 150 hot spots, with 250 new users signing up to the service each day. In the past year, 70 000 devices have connected to our public wi-fi hot spots. In 2017/18, a further 224 hot spots will be rolled out,” Winde said.

So far, 976 people have completed their training at the Bandwidth Barn.