Support is at hand for South African student entrepreneurs who want to develop their bright tech ideas into a business.

The Higher Education Innovation Fund – a joint project by the United Nations Development Programme and the Department of Science and Innovation, with input from the department’s Technological Innovation Agency – is intended to help drive innovation and technology entrepreneurship among students from technical and vocational training colleges and universities in South Africa.

The fund will guide young entrepreneurs in the journey from developing their ideas to taking their products to market, including how to secure intellectual property protection, scale up their business and promote it to investors, according to Bizcommunity.

Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande said at the launch that the goal was to grow the fund into a ZAR1 billion initiative, and appealed to the private sector and other funding institutions to come on board. He added that calls for proposals would go out soon to parties with the requisite skills and expertise to implement the initiative.

2 April 2024
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