The Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge has come to an end after five weeks of gameplay which saw 7 535 Grade 8 – 12 learners across all nine provinces challenging their entrepreneurial skills.
To set the scene, players were given a choice to pick an industry by establishing a start-up, grow the business, and earn points all on an interactive digital platform.
The challenge closely represented a realistic business environment, where the participants had a direct impact on their virtual start-up influencing multiple factors such as cash flow and employee productivity, growth, and scalability.
Of the 7 682 participants, 31% chose foodtech, 30% healthtech, 23% fintech and 16% edutech.
This year, the Entrepreneurship Challenge was played within the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic which provided learners with an opportunity to imagine and create solutions for their start-ups during a time where the food, health, finance, and education sectors have been under immense pressure to be agile and innovate as a result of the pandemic. The participants applied their creativity and innovation to become future disruptors and game-changers.
“The knowledge that I have acquired from the challenge has moulded my entrepreneurial mindset into one that is resilient, aware and able to take calculated risks, and this will be most useful in my career path in the next two years,” says Grade 11 learner Sachin Mohan, Challenge second runner-up from Horizon International High School in Gauteng.
In addition, learners participating in the Entrepreneurship Challenge were allowed to enter the Business Ventures competition where they could submit video-based business pitches to secure support that could see them take their actual businesses to the next level.
“The youth are the future of South Africa but face grossly unequal levels of opportunity and education,” says said Grade 12 learner Alex White, winner of the Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge and Venture Competition from Rondebosch Boys’ High School in the Western Cape. “Inspiring stories and valuable life skills are in abundance but remain unvoiced and unheard.
“South Africa does offer quality higher education: however, a small minority receive it. Only 50% of South Africans make it to and through matric, and in addition to this, a recent study found that at least 80% of job offers require one soft skill, these skills are not taught at school but are accumulated by self and environmental learning.”
The Entrepreneurship Challenge has been a success with the support and encouragement of parents and teachers, the challenge itself was open to high school learners only but the gaming network (social media platform) saw 428 teachers, 1 812 NGOs, 1 096 entrepreneurs and government officials registered.
“This is a mindset; we should be inculcating and democratising within our basic and higher education system by investing in entrepreneurship education and making it accessible to all learners and students if we are to grow entrepreneurship in South Africa,” comments Roheid Ojageer, Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge Manager.
“My favourite part of the game was the marketing campaign, as you had to look at the graphs, percentages and income levels to figure out what would be best for your business,” says Grade 10 learner and Challenge first runner-up, Abdur Raheem Abrahams from The Settlers High School in the Western Cape.
The top three winners of the entrepreneurship challenge received an entrepreneurial package valued at R40 000 each, which included Allan Gray Unit Trusts for the learners’ first investment to secure their future as well as a business trip to Cape Town to network their entrepreneurial ideas to potential business investors and mentors.