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25 DUT Excellence 2025 | Semester 1The various stages of the walk depicted the highs, lows, plateaus and slippery slopes that are to be expected on an entrepreneurial journey.Ms Nontokozo Ngcobo, innobiz DUT Centre Manager, said that the Hackathon was critical because it laid the foundation of students%u2019 businesses as the Centre assisted them in formalising their ventures.%u201cSome of the practical tools that we took them through was design thinking, lean business canvass, practical business modelling, financial literacy and pitch training, which they need to learn as early as possible,%u201d Ms Ngcobo said.Critically, Ms Ngcobo added that it was important to ensure that the students are taught to have a healthy relationship with money, hence the significance of financial literacy training.%u201cMy biggest takeaway from this cohort was how receptive they were to the information shared. On the first day, they shared their business ideas, which were raw, but they evolved over the three-day process,%u201d Ms Ngcobo said.Kicking off the series of lined-up workshops was a stimulating session by Dorinda Borg, who explained to the student entrepreneurs that %u2018design thinking%u2019 was a central element to the success or failure of their venture.She described it as a buzz phrase that all entrepreneurs needed to embrace going forward, building it into the DNA of their business to give them a competitive edge.%u201cIt deals with whoever you are providing the service to, it is humancentred, and you must try and find what people%u2019s pain points are. If you do not know the pain points of your customers, you will not succeed. %u2018Design thinking%u2019 needs you to keep ahead of the game. It%u2019s not what you think your clients want; this methodology looks at exactly what your clients need. This is where you must show empathy to the clients and listen to what they want,%u201d said Mrs Borg.Another engaging session was delivered by Mr Luvo Gugwana, the Founder and CEO of Green Arch Innovation, an innobiz DUT Centre alumni who presented a thorough pitch training presentation to help entrepreneurs understand selling their ventures to potential investors.%u201cThis is about helping students understand the importance of pitching so that they can better communicate their business idea from the perspective of what problems they are addressing and what solutions they use to address those problems,%u201d said Mr Gugwana.He said it was critical for student entrepreneurs to have a thorough understanding of the sort of businesses they were creating. Entrepreneurs need to address a problem while applying the principles of business modelling, including whether the business makes money, how they deliver services to clients, the scale of their market and the team behind the business.With financial literacy being critical to any entrepreneurial venture%u2019s survival, the student entrepreneurs saw Ms Fundiswa Zuma Nedbank interactively outline various aspects of financial literacy and how finances impact the entrepreneur%u2019s business and its success or lack thereof.She outlined the various types of businesses, including knowing the critical differences between entrepreneurship and tenderpreneurship, as it was of great importance for an entrepreneur to understand how their business is structured.%u201cWhen you know how it is structured, it becomes easier for you to have goals set in place. These are two very different businesses that are run differently, and the biggest contributor to the failure of business is the mismanagement of funds %u2013 cash flow,%u201d said Ms Zuma.She added that the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs often make is that once they have money and they qualify for financial products from financial institutions, they consume it while the business cannot afford it.Samkelo Mtshali