YBT – US Embassy project close-out event

Three young entrepreneurs were handsomely rewarded for their bright ideas on 3 November 2022 at a heart-warming ceremony held at Milkplum Cafe in the Pretoria Botanical Gardens. They were the winners of a previously held pitch event gathered to celebrate their achievement with staff members of the Youth Bridge Trust and the US Embassy.

A jury of “Dragons” rigorously assessed eight promising youth entrepreneurs who presented their creative ideas for dramatically and positively impacting their communities and their own career paths. Back in March this year, these young people arrived as participants in the Youth Ignite programme, knowing very little about the green economy and feeling overwhelmed by the dire unemployment and limited job prospects on the horizon.

Ntsiki Gumbe, Acting Executive Director of Youth Bridge Trust, explained how Youth Ignite was partnered by the U.S. Embassy to support marginalised youth through developing entrepreneurial skills in the Green Economy. “The programme aimed to create jobs and green economy sectoral exposure in support of sustainable economic development,” she said.

“Additionally, the goal was to promote an increased understanding of US values, perspectives, and policies about the Green Economy and a Green COVID recovery, resulting in new and improved relations between Americans and young South Africans between the ages of 18 and 35.”

Elize Hattingh designed and co-ordinated the Green Economy Academy with Janavi Da Silva and Monika van der Merwe, who coached the youth over six months.

During the course, the participants engaged in identifying, planning and structuring green businesses to meet a series of challenges their communities face, like drought, food shortage, pollution, and access to housing.

Youth Ignite! took them through the ideation phase, then through the process of finessing their ideas to come up with a convincing pitch enabling them to approach funders. This included understanding the numbers, their target market, and the various strategies that go into a well-constructed business plan.

With the help of business coaches they prepared their pitches and presented them at the “Dragon’s Den” in front of SME advisor, Rick Ed (founder of Do Better Business), Isabel du Toit (Circular Economy project manager) and Heather Wright from the US Embassy.

Rick reflected on their presentations, saying, “These youngsters were very well prepared and their confidence and creativity was impressive. Their well thought out projects will have a market as they were imaginative and unusual concepts. Let’s remember the ‘Thomas Edisons’ of the world who got hammered by multiple failures but are the people who ultimately succeed by powering through with unusual ideas!”

Rick focused on each presenter’s challenge of conveying complex ideas within limited time. “They tended to race through their pitches, not allowing quite enough time to get one’s head around the proposals, which compromised their message,” he said.

“It’s difficult to get the right balance of short and punchy when there are multiple factorS for consideration. The entrepreneurs took it seriously, pitching for investment, attempting to persuade investors to embrace their concepts. Their pitches were designed for this purpose and achieved that. They deserve to be taken seriously!”

Isabel du Toit reflected that all eight were well prepared with a good sense of their business model and she had a lot of fun at the event. “They all got to grips with the projected numbers, although some had better presentation and communication skills. It was quite a challenge to discern who’d created the best possible business plan,” she said.

The top three places went to Roots & Crops, Project 360, and P-Green. Isabel praised the trio, saying, “They all communicated immense passion, backing their business solutions well with strong feelings. For example, the issue of men urinating in public evoked understandable anger!”

She continued: “The school teacher who made the connection between the sub-standard jungle gyms and recycling plastic into suitable playground construction material offered an amazing idea that meets the new trend of the circular economy. His eagerness to create a safe play environment was very cool!”

Isabel praised Cindy Ndlovu of Roots & Crops. “Cindy’s strength lies in her marketing and branding background. Her presentation was beautifully put together and she spoke with confidence. The stand out element was the combination of an existing crop farming operation with an artisanal bakery that uses crops that don’t make it to market. For example, if there’s an oversupply of rosemary, this is made into rosemary bread. Cindy has the infrastructure in place to do the farming and can plug in an additional resource. Very clever!”

In conclusion Isabel reflected on the entrepreneurs’ willingness to take on feedback after the pitch, and their eagerness to learn. Emcee on the day, Elize Hattingh agreed. “Their rapid progression was hugely inspiring,” she said. “Just a few months ago they had no idea what green business was about. Soon they were coming up with great ideas to help their communities be more resilient to ecological and economic destruction wrought by wildfires, floods, drought, energy shortage, access to water and sanitation, pollution, food shortages, and access to housing. Watching them move from the ideation phase straight into having a business model built on recycling waste or making new items from waste was tremendously gratifying.”

All the youth entering the programme had been unemployed and stuck. Many expressed despair at having no career and few options. The Youth Ignite programme has given them new hope and tangible skills to take on pressing challenges. Hattingh was impressed by the level of innovation and technical understanding and application of ideation, going far beyond the programme’s expectations into startup businesses. “Even with staggering unemployment there is a bright future for youth in our country,” she said.

Close out event video