Heineken South Africa has announced that 30 entrepreneurs have been selected to participate in the 2019 Orange Corners entrepreneurial programme, which will help them grow their businesses.
The Orange Corners South Africa business incubator empowers startups in Johannesburg and Diepsloot to accelerate the growth of their businesses, providing workspace, training, business coaching and mentorship.
Established by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa in 2016 to support Dutch-origin companies operating in South Africa in assisting local entrepreneurs with tools to enable the entrepreneurs to be successful and help their businesses to thrive, Orange Corners South Africa has so far assisted more than 135 entrepreneurs.
This year’s intake of 30 entrepreneurs aged between 18 and 35 years were selected from 390 applicants, and includes 11 entrepreneurs from Diepsloot, operating in a variety of business interests such as poultry farming, catering and construction. The other 19 comprise high-growth startup founders based in Johannesburg, operating within industries such as IT, digital marketing, gardening and landscaping, and manufacturing.
The programme has been tailored to fit the entrepreneurs’ needs within their respective businesses, moving away from the more standardised approach of previous years. In order to achieve this, the team completed in-depth assessments for each of the entrepreneurs, to identify their business gaps.
“The key focus for this year is on helping these entrepreneurs gain more self-confidence, along with the knowledge, tools and resources they need to leverage their business ideas. Thereafter, we connect them to a network of entrepreneurs, the market and new opportunities, to help make their business grow faster, perform at an optimal level and ultimately achieve even greater levels of success,” said Millicent Maroga, corporate affairs director for Heineken South Africa.
