On Mandela Day, South Africa commemorates the lifetime of service former President Nelson Mandela gave to South Africa and the world. The Innovation Hub celebrates Nelson Mandela’s 67 years of service by giving back to the community, making a lasting and impactful difference in the lives of the youth by hosting an entrepreneurial boot camp that will take place on the 14th of August 2021 and the 21st of August 2021. Thirty (30) students from the LIV Lanseria Leadership/Youth Programme from grade eight (8) to eleven (11) will be transported to the boot camp at the Soweto eKasiLabs, Soweto Empowerment Zone.
This Mandela Day, The Innovation Hub’s new initiative, ‘Make a Change by adopting a young leader’, will combine The Innovation Hub’s ‘Schools Programme’ and LIV Lanseria’s ‘Leadership/Youth Programme’ to host a boot camp that will equip underprivileged youth with information and tools needed to help them think innovatively and to potentially start their own businesses.
LIV Lanseria is a non-profit organisation that provides holistic residential care for orphaned and vulnerable children. There are millions of orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa. LIV Villages focus on a solution to aid this crisis. LIV Lanseria exists to be a life-giving village for orphaned and vulnerable children which produces healthy families, empowered communities and Future leaders for South Africa. Their main aim is to restore a life, raise a leader and release a star.
The ‘Make a Change by adopting a young leader’ initiative involves identifying youths within the two programmes and offering boot camp-style training over one Saturday in August.
These newly learned skills will equip the youth for the fourth industrial revolution(4IR) and assist them to pursue careers in the innovation and entrepreneurial space.
The focus areas of the boot camps are computer literacy training, 3D printing, laser cutting and engraver machinery training, drone flying and robotics, and entrepreneurial and creative thinking training, respectively. The programmes will offer the students the opportunity to get practical experience in the abovementioned topics.
The Innovation Hub’s Schools Programme FabLab (Fabrication Laboratory) will form part of the boot camp programme. The programme aims to promote a culture of entrepreneurship at a school level, inspiring the youth to become entrepreneurs at an early age. The programme provides access to training in technology and innovation and helps the youth to understand the inner workings of business and entrepreneurship.
“By making use of the FabLab, youth from disadvantaged backgrounds will be offered the opportunity to create prototypes of their ideas using world-class, cutting edge machinery. They will be exposed to ICT world and mobile application development, 3D printing, graphic design, electronics, and robots,” says Advocate Pieter Holl, CEO of The Innovation Hub.
To be a part of the programme, learners must be interested in entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, be performing strongly academically and have leadership qualities.
“The Innovation Hub’s partnership with LIV Lanseria will give our students opportunities to learn science and technology concepts that they would not have experienced. These experiences will expand their minds and perspectives on possibilities for their lives. We hope this partnership will support the growth of future leaders for South Africa,” says Megan Strydom, Leadership Team of LIV Lanseria.
“There is a serious need to stimulate youth entrepreneurship in South Africa. Youth should be encouraged to enter the entrepreneurship space as a viable career choice,” says Holl. “Entrepreneurs and SMME’s present the greatest growth opportunity for our economy and seeks to solve the problem of joblessness in our country. With the boot camp programme, we strive to cultivate a culture of innovation at a young age, helping these students to realise their dreams and potentially start small businesses,” he concludes.
For more information on The Innovation Hub, please contact Linah Nematandani at lnematandani@theinnovationhub.com | (+27) 12 8440030/ (+27) 71 673 9964 or visit www.theinnovationhub.com.
The Innovation Hub – “#We guide today so that you can build tomorrow”.
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