Gray Matter Conversations BONUS episode!

 In this episode, hear from Fellow Melvyn Lubega, founder of GO1, an organization that serves as the Expedia for corporate training by allowing organizations to easily search, view, and book courses both online and in-person from GO1's marketplace of over 350000 learning items. GO1 has recently attained Unicorn status, which celebrates a startup company that has a valuation of over $1 billion. Hear about how Melvyn's entrepreneurial journey began and how his moral compass led him to solve a pressing problem of access to effective training within the entrepreneurial realm, and how it drove his company to achieve Unicorn status. 

Gray Matter and chill with Timothy Maurice Webster in the fourth episode of our Entrafluence Series where we hear from Okendo Lewis Gayle, the founder of the Harambeans entrepreneur alliance, an alliance dedicated to supporting the visionaries and innovators of Africa. Hear about the beginnings and experiences that shaped Okendo and how one moment inspired him to continue to pursue a better world.   

Listen to the fifth episode in our Entrafluence series, with Timothy Maurice Webster where we hear from Harambean Fellow Velani Mbweni, CEO and co-founder of Lula, a disruptive tech company focusing on transforming the way people commute by leveraging the shared economy with mobile technology. In this episode, Velani highlights the moment that shaped not only him but his decision to become an entrepreneur and identifies how he could solve a growing socio-economic problem with a practical solution.   

Gray Matter and chill with Timothy Maurice Webster in the third episode of our Entrafluence series where we chat to Thandeka Xaba, Fellow and co-founder of Digital Africa Ventures, which serves and represents the underrepresented by bridging the funding and support gap for early-stage tech entrepreneurs. Thandeka is also the Founder of Glam Mobile Grooming Services. Hear about what shaped and molded her into who she is and when the entrepreneur side of her was born. Listen to how a simple personal problem sparked a chain of entrepreneurial action for Thandeka.   

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Catch this second episode of Gray Matter conversations podcast in the Entrafluence series with Timothy Maurice Webster and Marie-Noelle, a researcher at the Brenthurst Foundation which offers new ideas and innovation for strengthening Africa’s economic performance. This episode speaks to Marie’s academic experience and how she applied it along with entrepreneurial tools to have an impact within the policy-making space in order to regulate society better. Gray Matter and chill with us.

Listen to the first of our Gray Matter Podcasts in the Entrafluence series which aims to highlight how entrepreneurship can be used as a platform to add value to society, featuring one of our very own Fellows, Lethabo Motsoaledi, the CTO and co-founder of Voyc, which is an AI and machine learning service that helps clients achieve expert insights infinitely fast, with Timothy Maurice Webster.   This is Lethabo’s personal journey of what shaped her into the entrepreneur she is today and how the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation acted as a vehicle for her to reach and achieve her purpose. 

This podcast delves into the view shift of entrepreneurship and how it has transitioned from an individualistic means to make money, to a means of adding value to the lives of others. Yogavelli Nambiar, CEO of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, also advocates for entrepreneurial learning and stresses that it should be considered a fundamental human right, as young people of the future will need to have an entrepreneurial mindset in order to survive and thrive. 

The Foundation surveyed over 1200 entrepreneurs across the country in 2020 and identified 14 different competencies that drive successful entrepreneurs - we use these competencies to identify entrepreneurial potential in our ecosystem.

We feel that the current period and national lockdown in South Africa affords us the space and time to hold healthy engagements about the plight and possibilities of South African entrepreneurs amid one of the most significant global crises in modern history.