South Africa’s reality of unemployment presented an opportunity for the origins of the Levi’s Strauss brand to live through a movement that identifies and uplifts passionate productive Africans and celebrates their robust, optimistic and limitless approach to South Africa’s greatest challenges: The Levi Pioneer Nation.
Pioneering a new era
A pool of self-made entrepreneurs will gather on 25 September 2015 at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown, Johannesburg to groom and inspire like minded entrepreneurs through interactive talks, workshops and couch sessions.
Some highlight events include a talk on growing your business through Facebook delivered by Client Value Partner for Facebook Sub Saharan Africa, Musa Kalenga as well as a dynamic talk from Shaka Sisulu on selling on price vs value.
Angel investors will also give input to entrepreneurs looking to fundraise in speed dating style, with potential for on the spot investments.
The art of active networking
The anticipated wealth in conversation will come from youth in tourism, education, environmentalism, culinary art, digital, design and the latest innovations in tech. “High tech priests” such as Craig McLeod, CEO and co-founder of B uild will share his story on building a global tech businesses through building powerful partnerships with the likes of Google, 2Checkout, and Facebook.
Jon Ratcliffe, ex head of Agencies for Google South Africa and CEO of M ofilmAfrica will also share about how his years in the marketing industry at Ogilvy & Google Africa led to him building a startup dedicated to getting African stories told.
We will also catch up with Jared Pillai, runner up of the Big Break Legacy season 2 and how his company Million Baby, aims to become the biggest baby toy manufacturer in South Africa.
“The line-up is diverse, impressive and speaks to functional creativity that solves problems and makes lives better. It’s all about forward thinking and leaving a legacy says Cal Bruns, founder of The Levi’s Pioneer Nation”
Fail early, fail forward, fail cheap
Over the past month, Levi’s Pioneer Nation in collaboration with The Hookup Dinner undertook on a mission to discover entrepreneurial talent in universities across Gauteng.
Student entrepreneurs were invited to pitch their businesses at the LPN THUD campus tours, a fast-paced youthful elevator pitch session designed to inspire students to pioneer their ideas.
Top pitches were selected from each university to compete in a Varsity Pitch off at The Levi’s Pioneer Nation 2015 to stand in line to win a cash prize of R10 000 towards kickstarting their business.
The Levi’s Pioneer Nation is sure to unleash a movement that will define a new era of rockstars at the forefront African entrepreneurship, innovation & community.
For tickets and more information checkout www.Pioneernation.biz.