Additional to the fact that that both countries love beer and sport we can now add vying for the title of the Largest Business Speed Networking session in the world – and breaking the Guinness Book of World Records.
On 17 November 2014, JCI Limburg from Flanders in Belgium broke the record by having 1, 068 people networking at the same time in the same venue. Each participant completed a detailed log book of all networked meetings as part of the event. This year, during the annually celebrated Africa month, we will attempt to break the existing record by having 1670 people networking at once. This is in honour of Tata Nelson Mandela long walk to freedom. This event is proudly supported by The City of Champions, A NMB Legacy Project.
Mr. Mazizi Msutu, President of the City of Champions said that he wants to unite businesses throughout Africa in order for them to conduct business in a more open and transparent manner. “We want to see how can we do better business together throughout Africa.”
On the same day, we will also host the annual Novice Entrepreneur Workshop/Competition in the same hall as the largest Business Expo as well as where the networking event will be taking place.
The Entrepreneurial workshop/competition is aimed at the youth who has a new business idea.
“We visit schools throughout the year to invite the youth to attend this workshop free of charge in order for them to gain valuable knowledge from business leaders on how to start their own businesses. We believe that each person is blessed with a certain skill that can be harnessed and honed to help them run their own businesses. Starting out does not always require funding; most successful businesses started out with nothing but their skills and a passion to make a success of their lives,” Lynn van Vuuren, organiser of the event said.
The workshop will take place until 11:00 when the entrants will be asked to submit their business ideas in one paragraph. The judges/ “Dragons” will then convene to go through all the applications and choose the top 15 business ideas. While the judges are deliberating, the official speed networking event will take place. As part of the rules, each participant has to networking with 20 other people in the room for a period of 3 minutes. Every new contact has to be recorded and handed in for verification purposes. No-one are allowed to enter or leave the networking session until each person has been logged and the processes are completed. The entire session will be filmed and recorded for review by Guinness Book of World Records. This session will be facilitated by well-known business woman, Ms. Jane Stevenson, GM of the Magnetic Storm group.
“All I can say is, it will be loud!” Stevenson said.
After the Networking event everyone will break for lunch and at 14:00 the judges will announce the top 15 finalists.
Each of these finalists will then be called on the stage and have 5-minutes to pitch their business to the “Dragon’s Den”. Ismail Hassen, one of the winners of the Big Break Legacy show and a finalist in Rize Mzanzi entrepreneurial reality show on SABC 1; will be providing the contestants some much needed tips and advice on how to pitch their business ideas successfully.
After this session, the top three winners will be announced and the end of the one-day event.
“We are also very lucky to have the popular Khanyisela KC Talks joining us this year in the break-away room at Nangoza Jebe,” Van Vuuren said.
The charismatic Roger Peters will host the talk show to their invited guests on all aspects of personal and business finances in a fun and interesting manner.
One of the winners of the Novice Entrepreneur Competition, Mr. Tarquin De Vega – Owner of the Grand Events company said it was an extremely educational experience.
“My experience in the competition was humbling, tough at times but most of all extremely educational.”
Another group of winners of the 2014 competition, were the learners from Gelvandale High who started a recycling project in their school to pay for a soup kitchen.
The groups teach, Ms. Bealah Peters said all the learners benefitted a lot from the competition.
“They started to become bolder especially by talking to a crowd. They also started to believe that they can achieve anything if they are willing to work hard. Two of them started to bake cake and biscuits and during holidays have a stall at Clearly Park. We are also now more eager and working very hard with our recycling project. It paid off so much that we actually got our long awaited kitchen building for our soup kitchen for under privileged learners. We thank you,” Peters said.
Businesses are invited to exhibit their products and services to our guests on the day.
This will be the Largest Business Expo in the Bay with an anticipated 54 exhibitors on the day.
Internationally recognised Uber, has also come on board to sponsor each new user with their first drive to the value of R150 to the event or back.
The event will have security on the day and there will even be a fundraising initiative from students who will wash our guests’ cars for R100 that will go towards their registration fees, which can be as much as R7000.
“We are very excited to be able to be part of an event of this calibre in the heart of the oldest Township in Nelson Mandela Bay. We want to bring together people from all ages, race, gender and status to unite and learn from each other. This event is in honour of Tata Nelson Mandela, namesake of our beautiful city and who’s nine core values; unity, freedom, diversity, justice, hope, human dignity, humanity, love and nation-building, we strive to adhere to and incorporate in all aspects of the day’s activities,” Mr. Msutu said.
Alan Straton
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