The MTN Foundation Launches Its Second Annual Women In Digital Business Challenge
The MTN Foundation Launches Its Second Annual Women In Digital Business Challenge. The MTN Foundation has kicked off its second annual million MTN Women in Digital Business Challenge. The Challenge, which displays the MTN SA Foundation’s commitment to empowerment in the digital economy, will run until 31 December 2023 and offer 10 female digital pioneers a prize of R100,000 each.
“The prize money is to be used for working capital, business development, purchasing tangible assets, and investing in business technology hardware, software, or IP”, says Lesimola Selepe, Senior Manager: Community Programmes at the Foundation.
Women make up just more than 50% of the South African population but are not represented as strongly as they should be in the broad IT industry. MTN SA believes that it is up to talented women to show what they can achieve within the science, technology, information, and mathematics (STEM) sectors in a country with massive skills and youth employment challenges.
“The MTN SA Foundation considers that making a practical contribution to fostering scarce skills and encouraging women to enter the sector is an essential part of making visible and sustained contributions to the communities in which we operate. In this, the second MTN Women in Digital Challenge, we will once again be extending opportunities for women to benefit professionally through the innovative and entrepreneurial environment we will be creating for their growth. Hopefully, their success will inspire others and encourage other women to start businesses, or seek job opportunities within the IT sector,” says Selepe, adding that the Challenge is open for graduates and alumni of the MTN Foundation business support programme.
To help entrants change the future face of the tech industry, the Foundation will be accepting applications and vetting them through its implementation partners. From these initial applications, the women compete in a two-day ‘pitching competition’. During these two days, they showcase their businesses and compete for a place in the ‘Top-10’. Following this, the entrepreneurs enter a four-month mentorship journey in which they receive expert advice on how to grow their businesses and the adoption of marketing strategies. In addition, they are also given help to ensure that the financial and business management skills they require to run a successful small business are improved.
Once graduating from these programmes, each of the ten successful candidates receive their R100,000 funding for developing their businesses at a formal function. “The Foundation’s first MTN Women in Digital Business Challenge event in 2022, showed that women were not only capable of competing in the demanding IT sector but also made significant contributions to society by closing gaps in IT education. They offered young learners opportunities to develop their skills by offering teaching and coding skills.”
