California-based accelerator programme the South African Business Link to Experts (SABLE) Accelerator was launched on Monday in South Africa.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, SABLE was formed by South Africans living in Silicon Valley and London, and top South African expatriates who will use their experiences to help their South African business counterparts. It aims to utilize the vast network of knowledge from South Africans across the world to make the country more competitive by stimulating both public and private sector innovation and entrepreneurship.
Donovan Neale-May, a managing partner and one of the co-founders at the accelerator, told Bizcommunity that they are bringing together highly knowledgeable ‘Global South Africans’ (GSAs) to make a difference to the country’s image and competitiveness on the global scene.
Neale-May is an executive director of the Chief Marketing Officer Council with over 6,000 corporate marketers, managing over US$300 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditure.
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Another South African professional who has joined the accelerator is Nils Flaaten, CEO of WESGRO, The Western Cape Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency. Flaaten says there is great pool of South African talent in the diaspora willing to come and contribute to the development of their home country. He will mobilize funds and resources from SA expatriates in the Diaspora to promote local ventures in the country.
They will also give technology firms and startups’ consultancy in partnership with the international partnership group (LLC) to help South African entrepreneurs, new venture start-ups, academic institutions and companies commercialize technology innovations, promote and protect intellectual property, fund new business concepts, finance growth and take on global markets.
A number of institutions also serve on the board of The SABLE Accelerator faculty to enable knowledge transfer. The institutions include the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch, Rhodes University and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
The elite online community of expert Global South Africans (GSA) will use a MentorCloud SaaS platform to show register their credentials and show if they want to consult, mentor, coach, speak, lecture, invest in the ventures, or serve on the board. In turn, they will be coached and mentored through the extended online professional network and be paid for their expertise.
Innovators in the country are required to register their innovations at SableNetwork.com to link a worldwide network of experts, funds and consultancy support mentoring and global introductions.
The founding groups of SABLE Accelerator members are based in Silicon Valley with professional positions at Stanford University. They have first-hand Silicon Valley experience on venture formations, startup incubation and capital, acceleration, liquidity and partnerships and firm licensing.
Image credit: eGuide Travel.
This story originally appeared on HumanIPO.
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