Grace Ashiru
Fifteen companies from all over the continent were selected to participate in the e-Track Programme, a three-phase venture acceleration program run by the UCT GSB Solution Space in conjunction with Ayoba. This selection is part of the second round of the e-Track Programme.
The first stage of the most recent iteration of the e-Track Program, known as Venture Launch, got underway about five weeks ago. UCT GSB Solution Space is in charge of managing it. UCT GSB is a specialist center within the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town that focuses on high-impact early businesses, corporate innovation, and the development of entrepreneurial skills.
After two days of competitive pitching to a panel of industry experts, the initial group of over forty ventures was reduced to fifteen for the subsequent round, known as Venture Exploitation. At this point, we are accepting applications from startup companies working in fields such as agriculture, education, wellness, marketing, climate change, and artificial intelligence. These companies come from all over the African continent, including Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, Namibia,
The companies selected for further consideration include the peer-to-peer teaching and learning platform Sgela Saam, the sleep consultant Sleep Science, and the prescription management application tool, Prescribe among others.. All of the companies in the cohort have a significant influence, and they include the provision of sanitation services Flush, the platform for safe transportation Kids Transportation Tool, and the tool for authenticating bank transfers known as Biz 301.
This year, a record number of people took part in Venture Launch, and as a result, a record number of startups pitched for Venture Exploitation. “This shows that innovation is alive and well on the continent,” said Vanessa Ramanujan, program manager at the UCT GSB Solution Space. We would have loved to have accepted all of them into the second part of the competition, but we had to make some difficult decisions and could only choose 15 of them.
It has already started, and it will end in November.
