COMMON Pitch at Design Indaba 2012

COMMON Pitch: South Africa at Design Indaba 2012 rallied social entrepreneurs from around the world to share their world-changing ideas.

During Design Indaba 2012 a party to fix the world happened in Cape Town when we presented COMMON Pitch: South Africa, an initiative that invited social entrepreneurs to share their ideas for fixing one of the world's problems. Here are the highlights - and the winner!

On Wed 29 February 2012, Cape Town’s City Hall was alive to the cheers of an international audience as 11 entrepreneurs from South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands, China and Chile took the stage to pitch their innovative, social-enterprise businesses at Design Indaba’s opening evening event, the unique and inspiring interactive competition, COMMON Pitch: South Africa.

The Mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, opened the event, which saw a prize fund totaling R390 000 distributed to the winning social entrepreneurs. Cape Town-based EarthBagBuild took home the top COMMON Pitch: SA prize of R150 000 cash and R70 000 in business services, to make their business concept a reality.

Design Indaba founder Ravi Naidoo welcomed the panel of top-flight judges from the creative and business worlds, before handing over to the evening’s MC, Richard Demato, CEO of COMMON, Design Indaba’s US-based partners.

COMMON Pitch: South Africa was presented in partnership with Woolworths, MTN and DStv.

Serame Taukobong,Chief Marketing Officer at MTN, announced the prestigious new R100 000 MTN Award at Design Indaba, presented at COMMON Pitch: South Africa to Headboy Industries.

Additional in-kind prizes including consulting, legal, travel and workspace were awarded from Heart Capital, mPedigree, Adams & Adams and Hub Johannesburg.

THE WINNERS

TOP PRIZE WINNER // EarthBagBuild

Entrepreneur(s): Dr. Johnny Anderton, Clare Anderton & Riann Hough

Cash Prize: R150 000

Plus: Mentoring and support from the business community to the tune of approx R70 000

MTN AWARD // Headboy Industries, product DryBath

Entrepreneur(s): Ludwick Marishane

Cash Prize: R100 000

Plus: Tons of love and support from the crowd for this young, amazing Cape Town entrepreneur

RUNNER UP // Eco Post 

Entrepreneur(s): Charles Kalama & Lorna Rutto

Cash Prize: R 50 000

Plus: Mentoring and support from the business community to the tune of approx R15 000

PEOPLE'S CHOICE // Mine Kafon

Entrepreneur(s): Massoud Hassani

Mentoring and support from the business community to the tune of approx R5 000, plus tons of love and support from the crowd for this amazing Design Indaba speaker

THE JUDGES

COMMONCM and Design Indaba were honoured to host a celebrity panel of judges at COMMON Pitch South Africa.

  • Ian Moir, Chief Executive Officer of Woolworths, SA’s premier fashion, food and homeware retailer.
  • Serame Taukobong, Chief Marketing Officer of MTN, Africa’s leading telecommunications provider.
  • Ory Okolloh, Policy Manager and Government Relations Manager for Google in Africa.
  • Carlo Ratti, Director of the SENSEable City Laboratory at MIT in Boston and named in “50 People Who Will Change the World” by Wired UK.
  • John Bielenberg, Partner at FUTURE, AIGA Fellow, the ID 50 and Instructor California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
  • Colleen Goodman,Marketing Manager: Marketing & Sales at MultiChoice Africa.

COMMON Pitch: South Africa was presented in partnership with Woolworths, MTN and DStv.

Ian Moir, CEO at Woolworths and COMMON Pitch: South Africa judge, said:

Common Pitch is a fantastic initiative. It provides a great platform for entrepreneurs and innovators to showcase ideas that have the potential to address a range of social, economic and environmental issues facing the world.

As part of Woolworths long standing association with Design Indaba, our sponsorship of the Common Pitch event aligns to our commitment to social transformation which is a key pillar of our Good Business Journey. We are proud to have been a part of the first Common Pitch event held outside of the United States.