Building Entrepreneurship Ecosystems

Tackling Youth Unemployment in South Africa

Youth unemployment remains one of the most pressing global challenges, with particularly acute impacts across Africa. In South Africa, the official youth unemployment rate stands at 60.9%, while graduates of higher education institutions fare comparatively better, this figure has steadily increased over the past decade. This trend highlights the urgent need for more responsive and future-oriented institutional strategies.

Higher education institutions occupy a unique and under-leveraged position in this landscape. They can function not only as producers of talent, but as active conveners, innovators, and partners in economic development. This webinar will explore how universities can move beyond isolated initiatives. It will focus on building cohesive, high-impact entrepreneurship ecosystems aligned with institutional strategy and regional needs.

Drawing on both global frameworks and African case studies, the session will offer practical, evidence-informed strategies. These strategies will support embedding entrepreneurship across the student lifecycle, fostering inclusive innovation, and strengthening collaboration across institutional and external stakeholders.

Webinar Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Explain the value of entrepreneurship ecosystems in higher education
• Define universities’ roles within entrepreneurship ecosystems
• Identify ways to embed entrepreneurship across disciplines
• Assess institutional readiness and priorities
• Outline next steps for partnerships, curriculum, and leadership alignment

Panelist Profiles:

• Stafford Bomester serves as Director within Career Services at UCT, housed within the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED). His work spans student entrepreneurship, ecosystem development, mentoring, alumni engagement, stakeholder partnerships, and institutional strategy. UCT has recently elevated Entrepreneurship and Innovation to a strategic institutional pillar, with plans to appoint a Deputy Vice Chancellor for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a development to which Stafford’s porfolio has directly contributed as a part of the broader institutional ecosystem.
• Professor Lalini Reddy is a faculty member and academic leader with deep experience in curriculum integration, faculty development, and institutional transformation at CPUT. She has led entrepreneurship and employability initiatives, contributed to the THENSA and entrepreneurial university projects, and contributed to the development of a 30-credit staff development course and train-the-trainer model for lecturers in entrepreneurship education. Her work focuses on the practical, faculty-level implementation of entrepreneurship across all disciplines.
• Dr. Naledi Galant is a serial entrepreneur who has built and operated businesses across farming, beauty, construction, logistics, and consulting. She holds a PhD focused on digital transformation and e-commerce adoption among township SMEs, an MBA from GIBS, and qualifications in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She serves as a mentor through programmes supported by JP Morgan, Walmart, Goldman Sachs, and the Cherie Blair Foundation, and serves on advisory boards for higher education and research commercialisation. Her venture, Nnakki, is an AI-enabled WhatsApp-first platform built directly from her doctoral research to support informal-sector entrepreneurs, particularly women in the beauty and wellness sectors.

The webinar will be moderated by Dr. Tanja Hinterstoisser, IFC Vitae’s Education and Employability Specialist.