Making it to the top three Rising Star 2020 finalists in the Sixth Annual Santam Women of the Future Awards has made the Durban University of Technology (DUT) Sports Management Alumna, Boniswa Mayeza to realise that she is a step closer to making her dream a reality.

Mayeza (25) from Bhobhobho at Umzinto, South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal is one of the three young business women fighting for the Rising Star Award.

She is crossing fingers that her emergency app, Shesha Mobile Application comes out top at the Santam Women of the Future Awards ceremony to be held on 16 October 2020.

Speaking about her nomination, Mayeza said she worked on the idea of the Shesha App for a long time but only managed to secure funding early this year (2020).

She thanked the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship (CSE) at DUT ML Saltun campus for giving her a chance to sell her idea to them in order to get funding to start developing her Shesha App.

“I joined CSE last year and within three weeks of joining I won the Best Idea award. This motivated me and showed me that people love my idea. Early this year CSE gave us a chance to apply for funding and luckily for me I was awarded the funding. The money helped to develop my app. It is now available on the Google Play Store but I will be launching it soon,” said Mayeza.

According to Mayeza, Shesha is a mobile Application that will assist all the people living in the rural areas to quickly get access to emergency services they need such as ambulances, fire fighters or Police services.

According to Mayeza, her mother gave birth to her at home with the help of neighbours due to the ambulance not responding in time of her labour.

“ I was born at Bhobhobho village which does not have proper addresses or street names. When I was born the ambulance did not show up. I was born with bleeding eyes and my mother had bladder problems. This is what motivated me to develop this Mobile Application. I did not want anyone to go through the same experiences my mother and I went through. It is a norm in my village that emergency services do not show up on time and people are forced to hire private cars to access these services,” she said.

She further explained that she was chosen among 700 companies who entered the competition. The awards partners, Fairlady and True Love magazines have also featured her in their September issue. This has made Mayeza to also be in the running of the Reader’s Choice Award, which will be voted for by the readers.

As the date of the finale is getting closer, Mayeza said she is not nervous at all because she believes in her idea.

She trusts her Shesha App and is certain that it will serve as a solution to many people still living in disadvantaged areas. Winning the prize will give her an opportunity to get her business up and running.

To vote for her, sms “Boniswa” to 37174.

Pictured: Boniswa Mayeza

Simangele Zuma