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GreenCape, in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, invites innovators and entrepreneurs with economically viable green economy innovation business ideas to enter the 2023 GreenPitch Challenge.

The innovators and entrepreneurs stand a chance of pitching to a panel of esteemed judges at a “shark tank-style” hybrid networking event, hosted in Cape Town in July 2023. Network with potential investors, business incubators, local government decision-makers and green economy experts.

Prizes, including a cash prize and in-kind business support, are sponsored by RMB Ventures, LaunchLab, Google Startups for Accelerated Development and SAREBI, with more to be confirmed.

Click here to apply. 

The Call is looking for projects that will form innovative ecosystems enabling advances in the State-of-the-Art and resulting in opportunities for commercial and/or societal impact in the application areas addressed. The intent is to bring together partners from across the broad Community of all types (Large Enterprise, SME’s, Research & Technology Organisations and Universities) into collaborative teams that will be able to demonstrate a high impact in the chosen application area at the end of the project.

The applications will be evaluated on excellence, impact, organisation, and suggested execution. Impact will be assessed both in terms of economic impact, in all participating countries and partners, as well as its impact on the green transition of the society.

The scope for Call 23 will include:

• Offshore Wind turbines, bioenergy, solar panels, fuel cells power to-X, energy storage
• Hydrogen Economy (Fuel cell, production, storage, station)
• CO2 Capture, Sequestration and Utilization
• Green and Zero-emission Buildings, Smart cities, heating
• IT solutions in buildings, smart monitoring, 3D construction, digital twins in housing design
• AI, IoT, Bigdata, 5G/6G integrated solutions in cities
• Smart Grids, Micro-Grid, E-mobility
• Monitoring of the environment and bio resources
• Drone and satellite monitoring systems of land, rivers, sea Industrial robots, sensors, edge cloud computing, Raman Mass spectrometry, AI, big data

Click here for more information.

The £10 million Innovate UK Energy Catalyst Round 10 Funding Competition is a funding opportunity for UK-based companies and research organisations that are working on innovative energy projects. To be eligible for funding, you can be from any country. The competition is run by the UK government's innovation agency, Innovate UK, and is designed to support the development of new technologies and business models that can help to address the world's energy challenges.
 
The competition is open to projects that are focused on the following themes:
 
1. Energy access
2. Energy storage and distribution
3. Clean growth

Click here to register for B2B Match virtual brokerage to find partners for your Innovate UK Energy Catalyst Round 10 application.

Click here for more information. 

Sumitomo Rubber South Africa (SRSA) is offering committed young entrepreneurs the opportunity to access the skills and capital they need to reach their full potential. Through the Business in a Box Programme, entrepreneurs can own a business, backed by an international powerhouse.

Business in a Box is a plug-and-play solution for informal tyre businesses often trading from makeshift facilities, to be transformed into Dunlop-branded fitment centres. The fully fitted 12m container, gives entrepreneurs everything they need to run their own tyre business and offer much-needed services in their local area.

Services On Offer:
With Dunlop’s Business in a Box, these fitment centres can offer these and other high-quality products and services to their community:

1. Tyre fitment
2. Tyre repairs
3. Wheel balancing
4. Wheel rotation
5. Battery sales, testing and recharging
6. Motor spares

Click here to apply. 

Installation, Repair, and Maintenance (IRM) Initiative is calling for SMEs to host young people for workplace learning in installation, repair, and maintenance work. 

Benefits for SMEs 

• Work ready canditates
• No additional cost to the SME, Gauteng government and NBI will cover stipends for the trainees 
• Workshop mentorship training to be provided
• Access to enterprise development support in the IRM Mamelodi hub (launching 2023)

Click here to apply.

The Creative Economy E-Learning initiative for aspiring and early-stage young African entrepreneurs is centered on entrepreneurship and provides the continent's future leaders with a selection of free online courses to aid them in their professional endeavors.

Participants will receive a certificate as proof of their accomplishment after finishing the program. With the certificate, you will be able to apply for ongoing support via coaching, incubation, mentoring, and acceleration through our larger work in participating nations.

Click here to signup. 

The South African Emerging Black Filmmakers Incentive is available to South African black-owned qualifying productions. It aims to nurture and capacitate emerging black filmmakers to take up big productions and contribute towards employment opportunities

The South African Film and Television Production Incentive Programme is aimed at strengthening and promoting the country’s film and television industry as well as contributing to the creation of employment opportunities in South Africa.

The objective of the South African Film and Television Co-Production Incentive, a subprogramme of the South African Film and Television Production Incentive Programme, is to support official co-productions and contribute toward employment opportunities in South Africa.

The South African Film and Television Co-Production Incentive is available to qualifying official treaty co-productions as follows:

The Clothing and Textiles Competitiveness Programme (CTCP) is a programme of the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti’s) and forms a core part of the implementation of the Customised Sector Programme (CSP’s) for the Clothing, Textiles, Footwear, Leather & Leather Goods Industries. The CTCP’s main objective is to assist industry in upgrading equipment, process, products and people, re-positioning South Africa to compete effectively against other low cost producing countries.

The Khoebo Innovation Promotion Programme is a Department of Trade Industry and Competition (DTIC) programme, managed by the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the objective of the Khoebo Innovation Promotion Programme (KIPP) is to enable early-stage innovative SME’s to penetrate the market with their locally developed innovations resulting in a more competitive economic environment and thereby facilitating economic growth in the South African Economy.

Click here to email a comprehensive business plan taking into account a 6 to 8-week review and approval period whereby the following criteria will be considered.

The Support Programme for Industrial Innovation (SPII) is designed to promote technology development in South Africa’s industry, through the provision of financial assistance for the development of innovative products and/or processes. SPII is focused specifically on the development phase, which begins at the conclusion of basic research and ends at the point when a pre-production prototype has been produced.

Schemes

• Product Process Development Scheme – Provides financial assistance to small, very small and micro-enterprises and individuals in the form of a non-repayable grant. A percentage of ‘qualifying’ costs incurred in the pre-competitive development activities associated with a specific Maximum of R2m grant.
• Matching Scheme – A percentage of ‘qualifying’ costs incurred in the development activities of a specified development project. Maximum of R5m grant.
• The Partnership Scheme – The levy-based grant is based on a percentage of sales over a fixed number of years. The levy percentage and repayment period are established at the time of the grant. R 10 million (minimum contribution).

The Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP) is intended to leverage collaborative partnerships between government and industry (working with academia), for applied research and development projects in science, engineering and technology on a cost-sharing basis, to produce highly skilled human resources and technology solutions, for an improved industry and enterprise competitiveness. 

The objective of the program is to develop new technologies for industry application and subsequent industrialisation and commercialisation, through applied research and development. 

The Agro-Processing Support Scheme (APSS) aims to stimulate investment by the South African agro-processing / beneficiation (agri-business) enterprises. The investment should demonstrate that it will achieve some of the following:
Increased capacity, employment creation, modernised machinery and equipment, competitiveness and productivity improvement and broadening participation.

Benefits; 

• The scheme offers a 20% to a 30% cost-sharing grant to a maximum of R20 million over a two-year investment period, with a last claim to be submitted within six months after the final approved milestone.
• The maximum approved grant may be utilised on a combination of investment costs provided the applicant illustrates a sound business case for the proposed investment activities.
• An applicant must submit a completed application form and business plan with detailed agro-processing/beneficiation activities, budget plans and projected income statement and balance sheet, for a period of at least three years for the project. The project/business must exhibit economic merit in terms of sustainability.

The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) initiated the Strategic Partnership Programme (SPP) to develop and support programmes/interventions aimed at enhancing the manufacturing and services supply capacity of suppliers with linkages to strategic partner’s supply chains, industries or sectors.

Objectives; 

• The objective of SPP to encourage large private sector enterprises in partnership with Government to support, nurture and develop SMEs within the partner’s supply chain or sector to be manufacturers of goods and suppliers of services in a sustainable manner.
• The intention of the programme is to support Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) policy through encouraging businesses to strengthen the element of Enter and Supplier Development (ESD) of the Codes of Good Practice.
• SPP will be available on a cost-sharing basis between Government and the strategic partner(s). It is available for infrastructure and business development services necessary to mentor and grow enterprises.

The Technology Transfer Fund seeks to support SMMEs and Cooperatives to participate in the mainstream economy. The Fund aims to achieve return on investment by creating growth in revenue and sustainable jobs, which drive the national economy. The amount of funding annually available is limited, and grants are thus awarded judiciously according to the business case for potential return on investment.

The Inyamazane Funding Scheme offers South African military veterans an opportunity to enter the mainstream economy by accessing credit facilities ranging from R50 000 to a maximum of R15-million to build qualifying entrepreneurial enterprises.

The fund was established to address high levels of poverty and unemployment among the veteran community, and to assist them in accessing fundamental social and economic rights.

The purpose of the Small Enterprise Manufacturing Support Programme is:

• To build a manufacturing sector for an improved industrial base (productive economy) through a focused import replacement programme; and
• Build the industrial base for both the domestic market and external market (in particular, the African Union market).

The programme aims to contribute to South Africa’s localization strategy by supporting manufacturing enterprises to:

• Increase the relative contribution of manufacturing to GDP;
• Grow manufacturing employment targets;
• Change the structure of manufacturing to high tech manufacturing;
• Increase labour productivity’ and
• Drive import replacement through locally manufactured goods increase exports in manufactured goods.