Students and business owners packed out UKZN’s Shifting Hope Activating Potential Entrepreneurship (SHAPE) Programme held at the Graduate School of Business and Leadership (GSB&L) Auditorium.
Students who attended the Maths Development camp. |
Students and business owners packed out UKZN’s Shifting Hope Activating Potential Entrepreneurship (SHAPE) Programme held at the Graduate School of Business and Leadership (GSB&L) Auditorium.
School of Management, Information Technology and Governance lecturer Dr Thea van der Westhuizen welcomed the high number of individuals present, telling them about how SHAPE was not only an entrepreneurial journey but also a leadership and self-enriching experience.
The programme began with a panel discussion involving a variety of entrepreneurs and philanthropists, including the Director of Herbal Kick and Managing Partner at Xulu Attorneys Inc, Ms Nonkululeko Xulu; Managing Director of Pride Factor, Mr Dene Botha, and Managing Director at Babuse Communications, Mr Simo Nzama.
The panel discussion, facilitated by van der Westhuizen, began with the question; How do we inspire and encourage more youth to become entrepreneurs and are there incentives that really work?
Xulu said many more young people needed to get involved in incubate programmes in order to grow their entrepreneurial thinking and skills.
‘We need to inspire the youth to get to a space where they can identify who they are. Once they understand who they are and what it is they want out of life, then can they go for their dreams,’ said Nzama.
On whether entrepreneurship was the real solution to unemployment, poverty and crime in South Africa, Botha said poverty was the reason for the increase in crime and that unemployment obviously caused poverty.
‘If everyone could go out and develop an initiative of creating jobs just by having an idea and running with it, an entrepreneur can employ five people, and those five people can in turn hire another five so indirectly one individual can create many opportunities. Therefore the more entrepreneurs we have, the more jobs we create and that should lead to a decrease in poverty and crime,’ said Botha.
Business owner Ms Portia Gumede highlighted that one of the biggest problems in South Africa was that individuals were trained at an early age to work in order to receive a monthly salary. Gumede stressed the importance of encouraging and exposing the youth to think entrepreneurially, more than working or studying towards being somebody’s employee.
A member of the SHAPE research team, Mr Wade Krieger, said after that the day had been a success in that it provided a platform for students to connect and learn from individuals who had walked the entrepreneurial path.
‘It is great to see the youth come out on their own accord. They have come down to learn and take action towards their own personal careers. It’s a learning experience for everyone,’ said Krieger.
Words by: Sibonelo Shinga