Innovation, creativity, and social entrepreneurship took centre stage at the Durban University of Technology’s (DUT) Hult Prize On-Campus Programme Pitch Competition held on 28 February 2024 at the ML Sultan Campus. This marked the first phase of the prestigious global competition.

The Hult Prize is the world’s largest competition, empowering the next generation to reimagine the future of business and become change makers by formulating innovative and social entrepreneurial ideas for sustainable solutions. The ultimate winners of this international competition walk away with a whopping $1,000,000.

The DUT On-Campus Pitching Session in partnership the DUT Business School was well attended with over 10 presentations from various start-up companies in contention to progress to the national stage. Giving an overview of the competition and its criteria, the DUT Campus Director, Ntokozo Thabethe, said to partake in this competition, one must be a registered DUT student, form a team of a minimum of two and a maximum of four people and have an innovative start-up business that seeks to address one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

“There are five stages of the competition and those are namely: On-campus Programme, National Stage, Digital Incubator, Global Accelerator, and the Global Finalist. After our on-campus programme, I am pleased to share that as DUT, we now have selected a team to represent us nationally and internationally,” said Thabethe.

Thabethe said the programme is closely aligned with the DUT ENVISION2030 Values as it cultivates an entrepreneurial mindset, helps students develop innovative business solutions and helps solve the most pressing global issues.

He acknowledged the DUT Business School’s contribution. He indicated that they had played a pivotal role in supporting the Hult Prize On-Campus programme and were among the first to champion young entrepreneurs.

“Their support extends beyond encouragement to providing essential resources. Their commitment ensured that we have everything needed to nurture and develop the skills of the next generation of changemakers,” he added.

The top three businesses were announced, with the winner, progressing to the national and second stage of the competition, Myco-Feeds. Myco-Feeds is a Durban-based sustainable mushroom cultivation business that focuses on high-quality oyster mushroom production and innovative training programs to support sustainable farming in South Africa. This business utilises agricultural waste to create affordable mushroom cultivation solutions that address pressing issues like food insecurity, health, and unemployment.

Greenspace Agrotech and Rejoice Hygiene claimed second and third place respectively and will receive mentorship from the DUT Hult Prize On-Campus programme.

Speaking on their achievements and plans, Myco-Feeds Finance Administrator, Mindazwe Mkwanazi said they were happy to have won and that the experience gave them the expertise of the judges, opportunities to collaborate with the other contestants, and market validation, and they are looking forward to the next phase of the competition.

“As a business, we also want to create job opportunities, and we are hoping to host more training, we want to upscale our profits so that we can move to a production house because currently, we are just in a random parking lot,” said Mkhwanazi.

Commenting on the talent presented during the pitch competition, one of the judges, Lana-Ann Brady, Enactus Programme Manager at DUT said the students have great ideas, however they need quite a bit of mentorship and support.

“One of the things that is missing in most of the presentations is the innovation, and that’s not just our students, I think that’s the mediocrity of South Africa in general. So we want to stimulate some more creative thinking with out-of-the-box solutions and for them to get into that level I think they need some constructive mentorship and coaching so that they can better identify the gaps in the problem that they are trying to identify and that will help them to add a spin of creativity or something unique, a value-driven proposition to the solutions that they are designing for their problems,” she said.

Pictured: Attendees at the Hult Prize On-Campus Programme Pitch Competition.

Thulasizwe Nkomo