In line with the innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation’s steadfast belief in the power of collaboration, forging new entrepreneurial relationships and strengthening existing ones, the Centre over the past weekend hosted the innobiz DUT Alumni Engagement.

The event, which has seen close to 50 alumni student entrepreneurs participating, forms part of the Centre’s efforts to reconnect with and continue supporting our alumni student entrepreneurs through site visits and business development discussions.

The event spanned over two days, Friday, 11 July 2025 and Saturday, 12 July 2025 in Durban, with a programme packed with activities for the alumni student entrepreneurs and guests to engage in a variety of discussions including a presentation on fundraising and investment opportunities from Mr Thato Ntseare, an Investment Manager at E Squared Investments.

Another interesting topic of engagement that was deliberated upon at length over the two-day event included the power of leadership in shaping entrepreneurial success by Mr Zakheni Ngubo, a mentor and strategy partner for the SAB Foundation, Business Mentor and Coach who is also the Founding Director for the Innovation and Research Commercialisation Agency.

A presentation on enterprise development, Intellectual Property and commercialisation was also shared to the cohort by Mr Sipho Dikweni, a Strategic Advisor on Entrepreneurship at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

From the University, the alumni student entrepreneurs received an opportunity to learn of the supplier development pathways, procurement opportunities and supplier database registration at DUT through a presentation from Ms. Nirupa “Nicky” Kemraj, a Sourcing Manager at DUT Procurement.

Welcoming the alumni cohort and guests, Ms Nontokozo Ngcobo, innobiz DUT Centre Manager, said that the event had been long in planning with the idea being to gauge the distance the entrepreneurs had traversed in the entrepreneurial space.

“There has so much that has happened in the past two to three years, but today I don’t want us to dwell on the past, I want us to chart a way forward on how we can best support each other and how best we can continue with the platform that we’ve established as you know that DUT will always be your home,” Ms Ngcobo alluded in her welcoming address.

Furthermore, she said that it was incredible to reconnect with so many of the Centre’s alumni student entrepreneurs and further strengthen the relationship between the Centre and those who have gone on to bigger things in entrepreneurship having passed through its doors.

“This is the beginning of a new, exciting journey, with each and every one of you. We have designed the session to be highly impactful and we’ve brought in specific business people that are at your level to assist you based on an outline and overview to check where you are, what you need and for them to accelerate you from whatever level you are in,” Ms Ngcobo shared.

She further implored the cohort to use their experience in the entrepreneurship space to become mentors to those still navigating their way through the Centre’s intensive three year programme.

“We want to also touch on how you guys can also maybe give back to support this work that we are doing as a Centre, how you can assist those that are still upcoming because you’ve experienced business and its challenges as young people.

“Today we are also connecting with some from the big network of like-minded people in the entrepreneurship space that we’ve established over the years, to come and support. We are privileged to be joined by key partners that are strategic to your growth going forward, these partners are specifically here to empower your growth,” Ms Ngcobo explained.

M. Dikweni shared that at the CSIR they were responsible for, amongst others, building new companies and ensuring that they become sustainable.

“It is nice to be meeting with you and it will be interesting to see how we can help you guys grow as we do provide a lot of support to SMMEs, especially core technical support while we also have a lot of facilities that we make available for your development,” Mr Dikweni said.

Mr. Ngubo, who is also an adjudicator and advisory board member for SAB, CSRI, Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE), shared that he was passionate about mentorship and assisting companies to commercialise and get their product market fit, and how to take them from where they are to raising money.

“I am looking forward to getting to know you guys and what sort of opportunities are there in the ecosystem and how you can access those for your organisations,” Mr Ngubo said.

He advised the cohort that leadership and entrepreneurship were about two things; the entrepreneur as an individual because while building the business they were building the most valuable commodity, themselves, their skills, character.

Further advice was for them to use every opportunity that they received while developing their business as an opportunity to develop themselves.

“Entrepreneurship is not easy, you build and you grind and it becomes a very personal journey. People often say ‘it’s not personal, it’s business’, but it’s always personal because it’s your heart, your soul, your energy poured into building the business and mostly importantly building yourself,” Mr Ngubo shared.

Ms Kemraj shared that their job at DUT Procurement was not just to protect DUT’s interests, but to protect the suppliers’ interests.

“As everyone in this room knows of DUT’s Envision2030, it starts off with stewardship and ends up with society, even in procurement we still have to follow that because every single thing has an end game and our end game is how improve lives and livelihoods,” Ms Kemraj explained.

Mr.Ntseare, shared with the alumni student entrepreneurs that at E Squared Investments their focus was on fast growing businesses, largely in the technological sector, although they also looked at businesses that displayed rapid growth and had both an impact purpose and a financial return.

DAY 2

As the Incubation Alumni Engagement hosted by the innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation entered its second day, the main focus centred on creating sustainable businesses and ensuring that the impact created by alumni business was tracked consistently.

Ms Nontokozo Ngcobo, the innobiz DUT Centre Manager, shared that the Centre wanted to ensure that the ENVISION2030 call for producing adaptive graduates continued and that the legacy of the ENVISION2030 roadmap, the adaptability of the graduates, is traceable, trackable and sustainable.

“This is aligns with us producing sustainable business, and as we re-engage with the first group that we started with we want to ensure that they are sustainable and if get stuck they must know that innobiz is their home, DUT is their home, and we are here to support them,” Ms Ngcobo asserted.

Ms Ngcobo explained that the main goal of the Incubation Alumni Engagement was to ensure that the cohort gets to know that business grows, and that there were different levels of business.

“We wanted to introduce them to the real side of business, yes we understand that they’re making money and we appreciate that but they need to know that there is growth beyond, for example, the R5 million they are making or the R10 million contract that they. We want them to ask themselves, what’s next?” said Ms Ngcobo.

Another key aspect for the engagement, explained Ms Ngcobo, was to introduce them to the acceleration programme which has key industry partners including the Council for Scientific and

Industrial Research (CSIR), SAB Foundation, angel investors, and other key partners of the Centre.

“We wanted to ensure that they now understand the next level of their businesses where we need to talk hardcore business issues,” Ms Ngcobo shared.

Amongst some of the critical engagements that the alumni cohort and the business experts touched on centered around networking, knowledge sharing, fundraising, and mentorship and how key these aspects were to the continued and consistent growth of their business.

Ms Ngcobo elaborated on just how important for the entrepreneurs these topics were, particularly given how lonely business can sometimes be for the entrepreneurs.

“Business can truly be lonely, and these entrepreneurs have gotten to a point where they have to focus on so many things, some of them have even attested that they don’t even get time to sit with their laptops and do their administration because they have to be operational.

“Although business can be lonely and drive them up the wall, if they network, they will get to know that these challenges are universal, and are for everyone in business. So, we wanted to re-introduce them to each other so that they could learn from each other, and network.

“This is very important for them, even for their well-being, their mental health as well, so that they don’t drown because they know they have another sister or brother in entrepreneurship to call, they have mentors to call,, and they know that there is a pool of a community in this space that could assist from other peer businesses,” Ms Ngcobo said.

She explained that with the cohort no longer in line to benefit from the Centre’s incubation programme, it was also significant to expose them to the external business support agency partners to further accelerate their enterprises.

The engagement also had its sights on the future, with the alumni cohort now expected to assist the Centre with the upcoming businesses currently in the various stages of the innobiz incubation programme.

“They can impart their experience with our upcoming student entrepreneurs, because they have experienced first hand the difficulties and challenges of business and the majority have overcome those challenges. We want them to come back to share those experiences with the ones coming into the entrepreneurship space and support, mentor, and guide them.

“We want to work with them in various projects while we are also supporting them. We want to create a platform for them to impart their experience, knowledge that they have learnt through their practical entrepreneurial journey,” Ms Ngcobo explained.

The cohort was exposed to opportunities from various industry players, including the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), DUT Procurement and business mentors and coaches with years of experience in the entrepreneurship landscape.

Mr Sipho Dikweni, Commercialisation Manager at the CSIR, shared that they were responsible for scientific and industrial research, mostly building new technologies and solving specific problems for the industry.

“We also follow scientific and improving technological trends and disrupting the status quo, so we work with SMMEs from technical support and contract research and assist them generally if they want to commercialise some of the Intellectual Property that we have within the institution, they can licence that IP and take it to the market.

“We can also coach them throughout the process, until they are sustainable in the market and we can actually get our return on investment. The coaching is not time specific, it depends on what you are doing and how mature you are as a company.

“We don’t do early stage companies, we are doing companies that are already operating, who have interest in the technologies that we have so that it enables them to be competitive in the market, introduce new products into the market or solve specific problems that they would have with the technologies that they products that they are taking to the market,” Mr. Dikweni said.

Ms Nirupa Kemraj, DUT Procurement Sourcing Manager, explained that there were several opportunities for student entrepreneurs, particularly in the EMEs (Exempt Micro Enterprise) and QSE (Qualifying Small Enterprises) categories, because they are small businesses.

“We have opportunities in electrical, plumbing, carpentry and building works, framework contracts where we appoint several suppliers per category for electrical and plumbing, and we award work evenly on different campuses and different residences. So that’s one of the opportunities.

“If students want to access opportunities on the DUT website, they can do so under tenders or Request for Quotation (QFQ) and they don’t need to be registered on the database, they just need to look it up, apply and make sure that they submit all of the documents,” Ms. Kemraj said.

Additionally, she highlighted that when students want to do business with the University, they also need to be mindful of whether there was a demand for the service that they were providing.

“It all depends on the demand, but there is nothing stopping them from engaging with us and talking with us. They also need to be mindful that being on the database doesn’t mean you automatically get the work, it’s up to them to market their business and if they are not getting work they can come and ask us why.

“It’s hard for us to monitor who we buy from, but we can try and assist them, coach them, help them to see where they are going wrong or right and encourage them to apply for more tenders, more RFQs.

“We are finding that a lot of small suppliers are not applying for tenders and I wonder why, but being on the database doesn’t mean you automatically get work, you have to work for it like in any business because have to be seen as being fair, competitive, transparent and we can’t give them work automatically,” Ms Kemraj explained.

Samkelo Mtshali