Gracia Munganga, Senior Manager at Climate Innovation Centre South Africa, who joined The Innovation Hub in February 2017, and Ms Gopolang Setumo, Senior Manager at Skills Development Programme who joined The Innovation Hub as an intern, were both asked to be guest contributors to the quarterly newsletter. At such a time as this when we greet yet another year, we thought it is most suitable to engage those who were at the inception of The Innovation Hub and those that have recently carried the baton for innovation. We asked that they share not only their respective professional experiences, but also their thoughts on the role of skills and enterprise development,
I am a girl from the Democratic Republic of Congo who moved to South Africa over a decade ago. I studied Chemical Engineering and have both a BSc and MSc in waste management and harnessing biogas from organic wastes at The University of Cape Town. I am passionate about sustainability and the role the green economy can/will play in contributing to Africa’s economic development. I have over 5 years of combined experience in the SA waste industry and biogas industry and spent a lot of my spare time tracking entrepreneurs on the continent as a source of motivation, Africa’s narrative in mainstream media can leave you feeling helpless and hopeless, you need a coping mechanism, this was mine. Reading from leading business, academic and/or philanthropist figures on the continent is a continuous source of inspiration for me.
I have worked mainly for two organisations, GreenCape (www.greencape.co.za ) where I headed the waste sector desk and helped to develop both a network of industry experts and thorough understanding of the waste sector within South Africa, such as opportunities and challenges. GreenCape also shaped much of my professional experience as my very first job after having completed my Masters. After four years, I then left GreenCape to join Anaergia Africa (the local office of a global biogas and waste management company, www.anaergia.com ) as a project/business development engineer. It was an amazing opportunity and afforded me hands on experience as an engineer and experience in business development, as well as the complexities in developing and implementing renewable energy projects in South Africa.
Based on my work experience, the main challenges encountered by companies in the green economy were linked to a rigid and complex regulatory framework and inadequate financing instruments, and I had hoped to work towards alleviating either of the two in some future. The Innovation Hub is a natural transition because in this space I am able to interact with the entrepreneurial eco-system in South Africa, but most importantly support start-ups in their beginning stages so as to increase the potentiality of their success and sustainability. Being able to perform as a support and cultivator is one of the many exciting components of my role as Senior Manager at CIC. Looking back, I am grateful to the selection committee for their decision to take a chance on me, I believe the hub has a combination of people who are both amazing and committed to transforming the Gauteng Region and its innovative entrepreneurs.
The Innovation Hub is well positioned within the entrepreneurial eco-system in South Africa to be a key player, as a link between governmental institutions, research and development organizations and academia, but also as an infrastructural support to entrepreneurs and its vision for a collaborative science and technology park.
Very few other incubators within South Africa are as well positioned as what The Innovation Hub is, nor do they have the sector expertise ranging across green economy, ICT/smart industries and bio-economy. In future, I believe what will become increasingly important will be forging key partnerships that will add value to the services offered to The Innovation Hub companies. Such partnerships could involve offering back office support to start-ups, something which continues to undermine the efforts of start-up entrepreneurs; enhance and expand our start-up support programme, this would provide proof of concept grants to The Innovation Hub companies, thereby linking these companies to the pro-bono departments of leading law firms and/or existing enterprise development programmes that provide access to markets, ultimately shaping a bespoke accelerator programme composed of the high flyers within our portfolios, etc.