Anele Mkuzo-Magape AFRICAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP INITIATIVE
Anele says she was fortunate enough to have had a good education and opportunities in the businesses she has worked for. She realised that this was not the case for many young South Africans, though, and to her that ‘just isn’t right’.
‘I decided that I wanted to change the narrative and help to create platforms from which young Africans who want to start a company can grow.’
And so the African Entrepreneurship Initiative was born, with a goal of helping to motivate young people ‘to go out there and make a difference in their communities’.
The company, which is a consulting service, offers a unique solution that ensures inclusivity and allows the youth – potential and existing entrepreneurs – to access financial literacy and entrepreneurship education. Anele has ensured that her business is completely accessible by working with multilingual experts so that the company is able to deliver its content in different languages.
The initiative is rooted in the notion that part of the entrepreneurial journey is learning from one another. Anele firmly believes that entrepreneurs are born and made. She aims to develop resilient entrepreneurs because she has found that success boils down to the entrepreneurs themselves and ‘their ability to fail forward and have the tenacity to stick it out’.
For Anele, the greatest reward is witnessing the entrepreneur’s ‘aha’ moments when their businesses start to take off, thanks to the tools that African Entrepreneurship Initiative has provided to them.
Anele believes that what defines a successful entrepreneur is hard work, passion, tenacity and the ability to identify opportunities. Her advice for people starting their own business is ‘to be like a sponge for knowledge’.
Winning the FAIRLADY Rising Star award has been a massive honour, Anele says. She feels it allows young people to see that there are initiatives geared at supporting them. Leading by example, Anele plans to use the prize money for a research project focusing on some of the entrepreneurs as case studies. She also thinks that this award will give her mother some reassurance that the many sleepless nights have not been for nothing!