Entrepreneurs learn tech repair skills
Course focuses on businesses run by rural women
Thirty owners of various sorts of small businesses from across the Eastern Cape spent a week in Port Alfred, learning how to fix broken cellphones and tablets.
This was the first of three components of a course to give women entrepreneurs the skills and confidence to carry out and make a living from tech repair services in their communities.
The StendenSA campus in Port Alfred was the venue for the CleanTech3R (repair, refurbish and repurpose) programme. The programme, which focuses on electronic waste management, targets women-owned IT-related and other micro-businesses from all over the province. The 3R boot camp from April 8-13 saw the 30 participants getting hands-on with repairing and refurbishing broken phones.
In addition to hard skills, the RuralTech Entrepreneurship Summit Programme included a panel discussion.
“As a woman, I have found it very difficult to operate my tech business because unfortunately this is deemed to be male-dominated industry.
“It’s difficult when someone comes into the shop and is expecting a man and is not confident in me because I am a woman,” Anelisa Qokose, a micro business owner from Mthatha, said.
“Many women have said that being a woman has hindered their business and that applies to me as well,” Sibulele Mbenyane, another micro business owner from Mdantsane, East London, said.
“Unfortunately we are constantly fighting the stereotype that women aren’t good with technology.
“With programmes like this from GLLI, learning more skills and perfecting them hopefully our work will speak for itself.”
GLLI liaison Luthango Nqgokoqwane said that this was part one of the boot camp, consisting primarily of a theoretical and practical approach to cellphone and tablet repairs.
Along with this comprehensive training, they will receive in-kind start-up capital in the form of tools and replacement parts.
Part two of this programme will be a tech business incubation programme delivered by Rhodes University Centre for Entrepreneurship Rapid Incubator (RU-CFERI) in June, facilitated by Professor Matshediso ‘Tshidi’ Mohapeloa, where the participants will learn about how to run a successful business including how to market their businesses.
Part three will be another boot camp in July, focused on generating additional income through electronic waste.
Collaborating in the project are Pace Able Foundation, Bank SETA, IDC (Industrial Development Corporation), Rhodes University, Stenden SA, Talk of the Town and Ndlambe FM. GLLI partners that were also in attendance were Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC), Eastern Cape department of education (ECDOE), Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT SETA), Long Ships, Finishes of Nature Global, GJA Development Centre & Global Jewellery Academy.
According to the GLLLI founder and CEO Dieudonné Allo, the visioning summit is a precursor to the RuralTech Entrepreneurship Summit.
The summit was facilitated by Siphiwo Soga, former provincial manager of SEDA and “a seasoned expert” in strategic planning.
The visioning summit harnessed the power of collective reflection, dialogue, and the active act of vision to inform the development of GLLI’s 2025-2029 strategic plan,” Allo said.
“I am very happy to be a part of this summit, the training is so exciting and I cannot wait to get back home and share the new skills I have learnt to my business and community” micro hair business owner Sethu Phakade said.
She said she was happy to learn a new skill that would help expand her business into the technology industry.