Tshwane, 15 October 2020.
The Innovation Hub, South Africa’s leading innovation agency, is home to many an enterprising and creative entrepreneur. Two young entrepreneurs, in particular, are doing their part to help alleviate South Africa’s most pressing challenges: managing the COVID-19 pandemic in our country and the knock it has taken on our economy.
Strategically located in Tshwane, The Innovation Hub (TIH) implements initiatives identified in the Gauteng Innovation Strategy and Green Economy Strategy to advance the economic development and growth of the country through innovation. The Innovation Hub has created unique spaces for high-tech entrepreneurs, world-class businesses, academics, researchers and venture capitalists to meet, network and prosper.
Sylvester Msuthwana, a 28-year-old entrepreneur whose company, Patient Health, is currently being incubated in TIH’s Maxum Smart Business Incubator programme, recently launched a proudly-South-African multilingual COVID-19 assist platform. The platform digitally tracks, monitors and stores screening data of people visiting public spaces such as schools, businesses and healthcare facilities.
The Innovation Hub’s tech entrepreneur,
Sylvester Msuthwana (pictured above) is a 28-year-old visionary and founder of
Patient Health.
What differentiates this platform from other COVID-19 tracking platforms is that it is available in all eleven official South African languages, with an audio option for the visually impaired.
“Research shows that second-language learners’ poor reading comprehension is often because of limited vocabulary. Greater vocabulary makes comprehension easier. We have, therefore, made it possible for people to complete their screening questionnaire in their home language,” explains Sylvester Msuthwana, Founder of Patient Health.The platform is paid for on a monthly subscription basis. A unique link is sent to the registered organisation, which then gets distributed to visitors for use when entering the premises.
Another young South African entrepreneur who has risen to the challenge and made a difference by creating jobs in a harsh economic climate is Phillip Enock, founder of ShareTrip, a group travel experience offering. The new company, also incubated in TIH’s Maxum Smart Business Incubator Programme, has already created 18 jobs.
Phillip Enock, has already created 18 jobs for his fellow South Africans; he plans to generate many more as part of ShareTrip’s value proposition.
“COVID-19 has allowed us to rethink our problems and also recalculate our solutions. As innovators, it has allowed us to forecast the future of travel and tourism,” says Phillip Enock, Founder of ShareTrip.
ShareTrip is a travel app that allows users to plan their trip as well as choose the activities that they would like to do at each location in advance. It enables a group of people who want to take a trip to have a shared experience. “Traveling in a group is much more affordable,” explains Enock. “ShareTrip makes this process more convenient as costs can be shared on the app, allowing everyone to plan their travels and share responsibilities effectively,” he adds.
Enock’s inspiration comes from his nomadic upbringing. His passion for travelling made him realise that those around him did not travel because of how costly it could be. A part of the company’s success is that the team uses forecasting models to help create pricing trends for future travellers – making ShareTrip’s app accurate and convenient for travellers to use.
ShareTrip boasts features such as an extensive library of different itineraries that users can choose from – and the option to share this experience with others on social media.
The app is not yet available for mobile, but it is freely accessible from the web.
The Innovation Hub’s Acting CEO, Mr Tsietsi Maleho, commends the two entrepreneurs for their work. “A true innovator always sees the possibilities, not the limitations. The current pandemic has allowed these two young gentlemen to think of innovative ideas that improve the state of South Africa’s economy, as well as how we curb the spread of the virus. The implications of COVID-19 have fast-tracked the need for this technology, and we’re proud to have helped incubate the solutions,” concludes Mr Maleho.
For more information on The Innovation Hub and its business incubators, please contact Linah Nematandani at lnematandani@theinnovationhub.com | (+27) 12 8440030/ (+27) 71 673 9964 or visit www.theinnovationhub.com.
The Innovation Hub- “#We guide today so that you can build tomorrow”.
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About the Innovation Hub
The Innovation Hub, a subsidiary of the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency (GGDA) is the innovation agency of the Gauteng province and is responsible for managing Africa’s first internationally accredited Science and Technology Park of the same name, and is a full member of the International Association of Science Parks (IASP). Strategically located in Tshwane, South Africa's executive capital in the ‘smart’ province of Gauteng, The Innovation Hub implements initiatives identified in the Gauteng Innovation Strategy and Green Economy strategy to advance the economic development and growth of the Province through innovation. The Innovation Hub has created unique spaces, in Tshwane and the rest of the Gauteng province, for high-tech entrepreneurs, world-class businesses, academics, researchers and venture capitalists to meet, network and prosper.
