Founder of Afriversity Jade Wyngaardt has won the #YouthStartCT entrepreneurial challenge for teaching coding and Web site designing to pupils from disadvantaged communities.
The #YouthStartCT competition, now its third year, is promoted by the City of Cape Town. Its objective is to contribute to skills development and innovation, as well as encourage entrepreneurship.
The City partnered with mobile operator MTN, False Bay College, A-Com, University of the Western Cape’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, Radisson Red, Marmalade Production, SEDA and DEDAT for the competition.
The annual challenge encourages entrepreneurs to share their best ideas for boosting employment in their local communities. In order to be eligible for the challenge, candidates were required to have a start-up idea that was creating jobs or had the potential to create sustainable jobs.
The overall winner will partner with the City on projects that benefit job seekers and provide long-term employment opportunities.
#ClickAfricans
Wyngaardt’s company, Click Africa Digital, is a digital marketing agency that provides services to SMEs with restricted budgets. These services include Web site design, app development, search engine optimisation and digital marketing.
“Our client portfolio ranges from NPOs to e-commerce start-ups; we also extend our offerings to the neighbouring communities, helping traditional brick and mortar businesses transition into the online space without breaking the bank," Wyngaardt told ITWeb.
She said they referred to their graduates as #ClickAfricans, and graduates go through six months of vigorous on-the-job training and mentorship. After six months, they are either recruited by their clients or are placed in roles offered by their partners.
“We use free and affordable online learning platforms like Udemy, EDX, Code Academy and Harvard Online Courses to train and develop our Click Africans. Our Click Africans use credible open source technology to build Web sites, applications and solutions for our customers at affordable rates, without compromising on quality. Firebase is one of the software examples we use to build great apps fast, and 70% of our Web sites are built in Wordpress. We are looking to expand to other technologies and languages within the next six months,” said Wyngaardt.
The company was founded in 2016, with one of its goals being to curb the high unemployment rate in SA. “Youth unemployment in South Africa is currently over 50% and yet there are certain jobs in the ICT sector that cannot be filled due to skills shortages, and ultimately, have to be outsourced. Our company aims to bridge the gap between youth unemployment, the skills shortage in digital, and access to affordable digital marketing services,” said Wyngaardt.
“We want to disrupt the digital marketing industry and make digital for everyone. This includes getting more black youth from disadvantaged backgrounds into the advertising and technology industries, as well as providing small businesses with an equal opportunity to operate in their markets,” she added.
We want to disrupt the digital marketing industry and make digital for everyone. This includes getting more black youth from disadvantaged backgrounds into the advertising and technology industries.
Wyngaardt noted winning the competition has opened doors for her and her company, which currently employs six people but hopes to grow to 15. “We knew that we had something special and all we needed was a platform to share our idea. I've had the chance to meet the mayor, the president and also several decision-makers in large corporations, who are so blown away by this concept,” said Wyngaardt.
She will use her winnings to buy three more workstations that will be used for creative work such as video editing and graphic design.
In it to win it
The winners of the competition received cash prizes of R50 000, R20 000 and R15 000, plus data, branding and promotional materials, a full year of training, and access to meeting venues at a hotel.
The first runner-up of the competition was Nkululo Gugu from IKasi Tutor. The second runner-up spot was shared by Mphindeleli Qalazive from AutoPrecision Engineering, and Caleb Herold from The Herold’s.
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