During the last two weeks of July, our 25 semi-finalist teams attended Business Clinics held in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town respectively. The Clinics gave the semi-finalists the opportunity to have one-on-one consultations with topic specialists on key entrepreneurial concepts such as Financing, Intellectual Property, Product Development, and Business Modelling in order to tackle specific challenges in their fledgling businesses.
Since the National Academy in June, our semi-finalists have been working with generalist and expert mentors in the various regions to guide them in the application of the methodology in preparation for their final pitches. Since early July 2017, the teams have also been participating in the international Cleantech Open webinar series.
Experts from the Department of Trade and Industry, Cleantech Open, Spoor and Fisher, SKEG Product Development, Green Cape and the Technology Station at the Vaal University of Technology volunteered their time at the Business Clinics to guide the teams in refining their understanding and implementation of key topics. The Clinics also provided an important networking platform allowing the GCIP-SA semi-finalists, mentors, experts and alumni to interact on a regional basis.
Our 2017 finalists will be announced mid-October and our 2017 winners will be announced at our high level gala event in November.
