Cisco South Africa launched a R10 million cutting-edge Incubation Hub last week. The hub aims to help develop SMMEs in the digital age and speed up their entry to the market.
“The hub is designed to impart business knowledge and technology skills along with collaborative opportunities. Our goal is to help prepare SMMEs for the digital economy and ultimately lead to job creation,” says Cisco’s General Manager for sub-Saharan Africa, Clayton Naidoo.
“As a global company, we want to enable SMME’s to have access to our resources no matter where these resources sit in the world.”
The centre will be run in conjunction with the Innovation Hub in Pretoria and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA). At least 30 SMMEs will be trained annually and given the necessary skills to enable them to compete in the market.
“From a local point of view, Cisco is conscious of the National Development Plan, and as such, we want to contribute to the country’s job creation efforts,” says Naidoo.
For more than 20 years, Cisco has invested in educating and upskilling students and graduates, among them unemployed youth, through its Networking Academy (NetAcad). NetAcad gives students hands-on digital skills training to prepare them for in-demand careers and the digital economy.
Advocate Pieter Holl, acting CEO for the Innovation Hub in Pretoria said this was an incredible opportunity that would change many lives for the better: “This centre allows young people and entrepreneurs to equip themselves with vital and specialised capabilities that will give them a head-start in the fast-paced digital world. With Cisco’s guidance, this will ultimately help drive South Africa’s economic growth.”
The name of the centre stands for the competitiveness that most of these small businesses lack to establish and sustain successful enterprises. It is this resilience that we are determined to arm them: Experience, Design, GTM (Go to Market) and Earn
