The inculcation of an entrepreneurial mindset was at the heart of the entrepreneurship webinar held by the Durban University of Technology’s Department of Entrepreneurial Studies and Management on Monday, 04 August 2025, under the exciting theme: “Think Entrepreneurship: Unlocking the Entrepreneur Within.”

With DUT now becoming a fully entrepreneurial university, seeking to produce new age graduates who are job creators instead of job seekers, the purpose of the event was to inspire students’ entrepreneurial spirit and provide them with the knowledge and resources they need to pursue self-employment as a career path.

Kicking off the webinar, Professor Dumisani Zondo, HOD at the Department of Entrepreneurial Studies and Management, said that webinar spoke to the ethos espoused in the University’s blueprint, the ENVISION2030 roadmap.

“It also talks about our intention, and where we are headed in the future, to inspire an entrepreneurial spirit and to provide the student with the resources and the knowledge. It really goes back to the heart of who we are at DUT, the mission and the vision.

“This is a good opportunity for all of us, particularly the students, because the students are central to the entire discussion. It reminds us of our mission and vision, which is to develop knowledge, skills, and attributes of students in the areas of entrepreneurship,” Prof Zondo alluded.

He added that entrepreneurship was a central pillar that was essential in the discussion, from the first module through all the modules, and that as the theme of the webinar said: “Think Entrepreneurship: Unlocking the Entrepreneur Within”, this was to be done from the first day at University to the last day when the student completed their diploma.

With the innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation being the umbrella body for all entrepreneurial activities at the Durban University of Technology, Ms Nontokozo Ngcobo gave a blow by blow account of the opportunities availed by the Centre’s rigorous three year incubation programme.

“I want to encourage our DUT students to visit our innobiz offices, especially if you’ve started something. For those students that are still coming back next year, we encourage you to come and apply for the incubation programme.

“We have various programmes, such as ENACTUS which is one of the programmes that we support, we have HULT Prize that we also support, we also have various faculty programmes that we are also invited on. The end goal is to support you to have a fully-fledged business through the incubation,” Ms Ngcobo said.

With opening and running a business needed a litany of compliance documents, Ms Ngcobo encouraged the students to submit as many documents related to their enterprises as possible as they are required in the application process.

She thanked the Department of Entrepreneurial Studies and Management for the invitation to share the Centre’s work and wished the students in business the best in their entrepreneurial endeavours.

“You guys have the support from the University, and we are all here to serve you before you go out. We get a lot of requests when people have exited the system asking to come back and be part of the incubation, but by then it’s already too late as we’re looking at those currently in the system. For you guys that are still in the system, make use of the opportunity,” Ms Ngcobo encouraged the students.

Dr Itumeleng Maome, DUT Entrepreneurship Lecturer, said that at the core of the webinar was the University’s ENVISION2030 which proudly and boldly proclaims that the University’s students will be entrepreneurial.

“We encourage you to start businesses, we always do that in our classrooms as well whether you are from engineering or applied management sciences, from every faculty that you belong to. You will know that we put our entrepreneurship at the forefront of everything that we do and most importantly encourage our students to start their own businesses.

“Even better, we encourage them to start businesses while they are still here at DUT so that they can capitalize on the different support structures that are available to assist them to start their own businesses,” Dr Maome explained.

With employment opportunities after graduation not guaranteed, and fast dwindling, she said that it was important that students take their individual futures into their own hands and start their own businesses and also create employment opportunities for other people too.

“The goal of this webinar is to ignite an entrepreneurial spirit within you, to show you as students that entrepreneurship is more than just establishing a business, but it is also about adopting a mindset that sees problems and opportunities.

“It is also to encourage our students to be on the lookout for problems everywhere they go, problems that exist in their communities, and try to find a way of turning those problems into opportunities to start a business. You don’t have to go very far, you can start where you are in the community where you are,” Dr Maome said encouragingly.

Mr Thubelihle Mhlaba, a DUT alumni and business owner of Elihle Mhlaba Trading, shared some important insights to fellow entrepreneurs on various challenges that they might encounter on their entrepreneurial journeys and how to navigate those successfully.

“Financial struggles are very common, especially at the beginning and there are also the naysayers, people that we call non-believers and people who criticise everything that we try to embark on. Some of the things that you need to learn is that you must try not to personalise or take criticism to heart.

“Competition will always be there, no matter which industry you are in, but you need to have a competitive advantage and my one is excellence. I strive for excellence, so in everything that I do I try to make sure that I leave little space for mistakes,” Mr Mhlaba said.

He also called on entrepreneurs to never doubt their entrepreneurial abilities, saying that there was nothing wrong with making mistakes, but that they should mitigate self-doubt and fear of failure by being kind to themselves.

Pictured: innobiz DUT Centre manager, Ms Nontokozo Ngcobo chatting to the students at the webinar.

Samkelo Mtshali