This year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) will run from 18-24 November at 22 ON SLOANE – Africa’s largest startup campus, which offers over 100 disruptive startups and SME’s a platform to scale. Various ecosystem role-players across South Africa will also host events within their communities, throughout the week.

22 ON SLOANE is proud to announce that former South African President, Kgalema Motlanthe will close off what promises to be an insightful, impactful, highly constructive and collaborative GEW experience for all involved. The Former President will deliver a keynote address on the importance and need for all ecosystem role-players to support small businesses, on Friday 22nd November 2019.

The GEW is the world’s largest celebration of entrepreneurs that bring ideas to life and help drive economic growth globally. Worldwide, GEW attracts over ten million participants with 35 000 events taking place in over 170 nations across the world. Its platform encourages various entrepreneurial ecosystem stakeholders to launch new programmes, provide grants to deserving start-ups, take stock of their activities for the year and keep advancing policies for SME development. The event aims to strengthen the entire entrepreneurship ecosystem and improve various service offerings by incubators and accelerators to address rising unemployment challenges.

22 ON SLOANE will be celebrating GEW with the following activities:

Monday 18th November – Agro-processing, Energy, Manufacturing and Water Day

Tuesday 19th November – Connectivity (Technology)

Wednesday 20th November – Mobile Gaming (focusing on educational games)

Thursday 21st November – Join us @ JSE as we ring the opening market bell! (registrations closed)

Friday 22nd November – Celebrating entrepreneurs in fashion and design in partnership with Edcon and Proudly SA. GEW 2019 closing address from former President Kgalema Motlanthe (by invite only).

Gamuchirai Mutezo, Chief Operations Officer at 22 ON SLOANE, stated that ‘as we gear up for GEW 2019, it is important to remember that startups and SMEs must always be a top priority. Attention must be given to SMEs, which in fact are the real new job creators. According to the OECD report in 2016, in the OECD area, SMEs are the predominant form of enterprise, accounting for approximately 99% of all firms. They provide the main source of employment, accounting for about 70% of jobs on average and are major contributors to value creation, generating between 50% and 60% of value added on average.

In emerging economies, SMEs contribute up to 45% of total employment and 33% of GDP. When taking the contribution of informal businesses into account, SMEs contribute to more than half of employment and GDP in most countries, irrespective of income levels.

The GEW closing ceremony will be held in collaboration with Edcon and Proudly SA where graduates from the Edcon Innovation Challenge will dazzle the evening with a fashion show that exhibits South Africa’s young and upcoming talent in the fashion and design industry.