Chivas Regal will be taking one South African social entrepreneur to Silicon Valley with four other global finalists from its Win The Right Way competition. The winner will be provided with a share of $1 million in financial assistance, world-famous mentors and their work will be showcased on www.TheVenture.com. The company has announced all five finalists and today we introduce you to the esteemed panel of judges.
Judges:
- Tebogo Ditshego: Chief Executive Officer, Ditshego Media
- Xolisa Dyeshana: Executive Creative Director, Joe Public
- Chimene Chetty: Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship, Wits Business School
- Lebo Gunguluza: Entrepreneur, GEM Group
- Ravi Naidoo: Managing Director, Design Indaba
Tebogo Ditshego was listed as Forbes Magazine's top 30 African Entrepreneurs for 2014 and M&G Top 200 Youth 2014. He is a South African Public Relations expert and founder of South Africa’s most followed reading initiative @ReadAbookSA which has close to 30 000 Twitter followers and more than 10 000 books recommended by its followers.
“Social entrepreneurship is about identifying a social problem and creating a sustainable business model with the purpose of tackling the challenge.”
Xolisa Dyeshana is Executive Creative Director and partner at Joe Public. He is also the Chairperson of The Loerie Awards, South Africa’s premiere advertising awards show. He also sits on the Creative Circle Exco - the highest decision making body for creativity in South Africa, made up of a handful of the best creative directors in the country.
“Social Entrepreneurship is about finding long-term sustainable solutions for society’s challenges and, I believe, it is the only long-term sustainable way of doing business. The days where businesses simply take from society without giving back are numbered and it is only those businesses that recognise their responsibility to the well-being of the community that will win the hearts and minds of the community.”
Chimene Chetty is the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship at the Wits Business School. Being an entrepreneur in her own right, she brings to the position the personal insights and experience of an entrepreneur. She was also the Regional Director of Ashoka, a global NGO working in the area of social entrepreneurship
“Do what you can with what you have and where you are. Planning and research can only get you to an idea…Action will help your test, prototype, change, fail, learn, and improve. Plans help you think through processes and strategies but the right product, value proposition and knowing your customers will bring in the money. Think big, start small. Be action-oriented. Take the first step now!”
Lebo Gunguluza is the owner of the GEM Group. Gunguluza has identified media, hospitality, technology and property as the sectors he wanted to play in and went about establishing investments in these markets. In four and a half years he has built GEM Group into a multi-million rand business with more than twelve print publications, stakes in numerous hotels and he has diversified into architectural design and construction, executive travel and transportation, event exhibition manufacturing as well as mobile and eventing technologies. He was recently nominated to be one of the judges in a renowned show called The Dragon’s Den.
Ravi Naidoo is the founder and managing director of Interactive Africa, a Cape Town-based media and marketing company. Naidoo completed his MBA degree at the University of Cape Town in 1994 where he was nominated as the Nedbank MBA Student of the Year. Ravi also has a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Physiology from UCT. Besides the three years as an account director at Young and Rubicam (90-93) where Ravi managed a number of multi-national accounts, his main business interest has always been media, creativity, marketing and project management.
In 1994 Naidoo founded Interactive Africa. Initial recognition came through the project management of the First African in Space Mission and the marketing and pitching of South Africa’s bid to host the 2010 Football World Cup, as well as the 2006 campaign.
Nonetheless, he is possibly best known for establishing the international Design Indaba which has become recognised as one of the world’s leading design institutions through its flagship Conference and Expo, annually held in Cape Town. Naidoo also sits on the jury of the Index Awards (the world’s richest design prize) in Copenhagen, as well as the jury of the Dutch Design Awards.
