Top three ventures announced
A group of 32 social entrepreneurs celebrated their graduation from this year’s Social Innovation Winter School hosted in Stellenbosch last week. The group included students from Walter Sisulu University, Stellenbosch University, community-based entrepreneurs and various NGOs across the Western Cape.
The Social Innovation Winter School was hosted by Stellenbosch-based non-profit company, Ranyaka Community Transformation, in collaboration with Stellenbosch Network and the Sustainability Institute. The interactive five-day course covered topics such as understanding social problems and their root causes, identifying opportunities for innovation, design thinking and human-centered idea generation, business models for social innovation, scaling social innovations, and measuring impact.
The graduates’ innovative social ventures range from community-based security solutions and crime mapping to organic soil fertilizers, skills training facilities and medicinal gardens. The top three ventures are e-Ways, revolutionising electric trucking (third place), I See You, an app combating mental health stigmatisation (second place) and the first place winner, Unathi Mashaba from Asake, who addresses school absenteeism due to menstruation and the cost of menstrual products in vulnerable communities.
“To address the socio-economic challenges facing South Africa, it is crucial for academia, impact investors, and vulnerable communities to collaborate and collectively brainstorm innovative solutions. By leveraging academic expertise and the lived experiences of community members, we can co-develop effective strategies for positive change, resulting in co-owned social ventures, benefiting vulnerable communities both socially and economically,” says Ranyaka Social Impact Advisor, Marli Goussard.
- Ranyaka Community Transformation is a national non-profit company with its head office in Stellenbosch. Ranyaka works in 8 provinces across South Africa and is the implementation agent for the Nedbank Proud of my Town programme.