[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
I’m a Township boy I grew up in a
Township called for us and for you guys
who are not familiar but that place it’s
a little Township in the eastern end of
how thing I loved my time shirt the same
way you probably love where you grew up
in simply because this is where I
discovered my first dream that dream us
to be a soccer player a professional
soccer player this is quite typical for
a Township boy isn’t it but what was
amazing about it is that I didn’t
discover this dream in a soccer field
but rather in the streets the same
streets way there’d be rocks and bricks
lying around so we take these bricks and
use them as small coal posts and then we
take ball a ball if any of us had a pole
would use it if there wasn’t a pole we
take plastics tie them together to the
form the round shape and that was our
soccer ball so nothing really could stop
us from playing and we gave this game a
name we called it a team team the
rationale behind this name is that
there’s one team versus another team
hands each team team so I discovered
that the formal English name for this
game is called street football makes
sense but a much preferred team team you
know it’s got that thing but we found
innovation in the little that we have
and that’s the beauty of it not just to
play but what this did to me is that
like many rather millions of little boys
and girls in townships in South Africa
it gave us the opportunity to dream for
the first time and all this was afforded
by just taking what we have now today
I’m not standing here as a professional
soccer player unfortunately but I’m
proud to say that I’m a videographer I’m
an entrepreneur in the local retail
sector and I make furniture for a living
these three identities I didn’t learn
all of this
from formal training but rather from the
understanding that I have to use what I
have and make the best of it now to tell
the story of these three identities I’ll
start with the videography this is
something I stumbled upon during my
varsity days now being a student we all
know that being cool is still a big deal
and it was back then when I was still at
school and before so at that time being
a blogger was a thing to be so I decided
to join the club I launched my blog and
it was called sneak peek and what I did
was document sneaker cultures the
African sneaker culture my approach to
it was very simple each time I bump into
a sneaker fanatic that was well-known or
a celebrity that was into sneakers I’d
ask for an interview and if they agreed
perfect I’d take out my phone which had
a two megapixel camera and I’d record
the conversation I take the footage Goho
edit it with the laptop which I used for
school and posted it on YouTube and
share it via my blog and I started put
out my first blog post second one third
one before I knew it my blogs were
reaching far and wide and just like that
I gained credibility within the South
African sneaker fraternity and the
mission was accomplished I was cool and
verified that’s it
I was happy now in the midst of the
school I finally graduated from varsity
record time at that
but reality soon set in and this reality
is that I to make a living meaning I had
to get a job a lot of us know about this
reality so what I did was I went to
friends of mine who already in the job
market and I asked them how long does it
take to get a job and the average answer
was six months and I thought to myself
six months is a very long time to be
broke I need to make a plan and I did I
mean I did make a plan and it’s
something I heard of and it’s an online
store it was fascinating so I thought to
myself since I ran a blog it should be
easy to manage an online store since
they both online so I took my last two
thousand rounds for a domain that we
doubled our HTC online comm time our HTC
is an acronym for returning home to
create sounds cool
so I ran with that name then with the
rest of my money
I bought a template for that website
changed a couple of things around to
make it look like a proper website at
that point I needed clients so what I
did went back to the cool Crewe’s part
of and within that crew there were
streets where designers
local street designers these guys were
very popular in the neighborhoods and
other neighborhoods except they couldn’t
sell to people outside the neighborhood
and this is where the online platform
came in through the online platform
could sell to people outside our
province
people outside our country and at times
people outside our continent and at this
point I was happy simply because I made
money and I was still cool and that was
it but as time went on I learned to
appreciate the fact that I was actually
contributing to solving an actual
problem and this problem was a
distribution problem not only a
distribution problem but I was playing a
part in this ecosystem that allowed
independent young entrepreneurs within
the fashion industry to actually
actively participate and this meant a
lot as time went on a year later with
earned enough money to develop the site
into a proper ecommerce sites
and I’m proud to say today that our HCC
online store is amongst the leading
independently owned online retail stores
and this is how it looks so businesses
are about solving problems and they too
have a lot of problems and we faced a
lot of challenges two years into the
business we had come to a point whereby
we were not making any progression with
our online sales and this called for
ground presence so the obvious choice is
to get a brick-and-mortar store but we
didn’t go that too it’s because of two
main challenges the first one is that we
were young we had so many ideas so many
things to do we couldn’t be confined in
a small space for eight hours every day
the second challenge was that we simply
could not we simply could not afford a
commercial space and this is an actual
reality for a lot of entrepreneurs so we
did more research and discovered this
concept of a mobile store I stole their
you’d pop up would you use to pop up
anyway so we went to a friend of ours
called computer computer does door
fittings and we introduced this concept
to him he loved it and he executed he
gave us the store that could fit into a
car boot or backseat of a car and could
be assembled within a few minutes and he
assembled to that within a fraction of
that time and this is how it looked it
was amazing so amazing that sometimes
when you pop up some people would be
more fascinated over the store than the
actual product that we were selling and
we took a mental note of this went back
did more research and discovered that
the more there are more entrepreneurs
out there that seek the same capability
so we went back to computer and proposed
the idea of starting this business that
would offer this product he bought into
it and eight months later we produced a
couple of products that gave capability
to young entrepreneurs this is a kind of
entrepreneur that lives in a compact
space
be it at home onus in a small apartment
this is a type of entrepreneur that
commutes using public transport and with
this product it allow him to have
furniture that shouldn’t be stored but
furniture that can be used at home and
whenever they want to retail they’ll use
this very same furniture so with this
said all these three identities are
simply not because I’m a genius
or my friends are genius at all one
thing we learned from that is that if we
have ideas we should just thought as
simple as that
just start with the little that you have
and allow yourself to develop in the
process and in the development process
we should seek innovation relevant
innovation innovation that makes sense
to an African context so that’s why it’s
important for us here today
to be like when we were kids playing in
the streets using the brakes using the
plastics to take what we have find
innovation within it to allow us firstly
to participate but not only stop there
but to construct more features more
products to allow more of us to
participate and this is the mission that
I and all of you here need to engage in
and that mission is to democratize
capability
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]
[Applause]
I’m a Township boy I grew up in a
Township called for us and for you guys
who are not familiar but that place it’s
a little Township in the eastern end of
how thing I loved my time shirt the same
way you probably love where you grew up
in simply because this is where I
discovered my first dream that dream us
to be a soccer player a professional
soccer player this is quite typical for
a Township boy isn’t it but what was
amazing about it is that I didn’t
discover this dream in a soccer field
but rather in the streets the same
streets way there’d be rocks and bricks
lying around so we take these bricks and
use them as small coal posts and then we
take ball a ball if any of us had a pole
would use it if there wasn’t a pole we
take plastics tie them together to the
form the round shape and that was our
soccer ball so nothing really could stop
us from playing and we gave this game a
name we called it a team team the
rationale behind this name is that
there’s one team versus another team
hands each team team so I discovered
that the formal English name for this
game is called street football makes
sense but a much preferred team team you
know it’s got that thing but we found
innovation in the little that we have
and that’s the beauty of it not just to
play but what this did to me is that
like many rather millions of little boys
and girls in townships in South Africa
it gave us the opportunity to dream for
the first time and all this was afforded
by just taking what we have now today
I’m not standing here as a professional
soccer player unfortunately but I’m
proud to say that I’m a videographer I’m
an entrepreneur in the local retail
sector and I make furniture for a living
these three identities I didn’t learn
all of this
from formal training but rather from the
understanding that I have to use what I
have and make the best of it now to tell
the story of these three identities I’ll
start with the videography this is
something I stumbled upon during my
varsity days now being a student we all
know that being cool is still a big deal
and it was back then when I was still at
school and before so at that time being
a blogger was a thing to be so I decided
to join the club I launched my blog and
it was called sneak peek and what I did
was document sneaker cultures the
African sneaker culture my approach to
it was very simple each time I bump into
a sneaker fanatic that was well-known or
a celebrity that was into sneakers I’d
ask for an interview and if they agreed
perfect I’d take out my phone which had
a two megapixel camera and I’d record
the conversation I take the footage Goho
edit it with the laptop which I used for
school and posted it on YouTube and
share it via my blog and I started put
out my first blog post second one third
one before I knew it my blogs were
reaching far and wide and just like that
I gained credibility within the South
African sneaker fraternity and the
mission was accomplished I was cool and
verified that’s it
I was happy now in the midst of the
school I finally graduated from varsity
record time at that
but reality soon set in and this reality
is that I to make a living meaning I had
to get a job a lot of us know about this
reality so what I did was I went to
friends of mine who already in the job
market and I asked them how long does it
take to get a job and the average answer
was six months and I thought to myself
six months is a very long time to be
broke I need to make a plan and I did I
mean I did make a plan and it’s
something I heard of and it’s an online
store it was fascinating so I thought to
myself since I ran a blog it should be
easy to manage an online store since
they both online so I took my last two
thousand rounds for a domain that we
doubled our HTC online comm time our HTC
is an acronym for returning home to
create sounds cool
so I ran with that name then with the
rest of my money
I bought a template for that website
changed a couple of things around to
make it look like a proper website at
that point I needed clients so what I
did went back to the cool Crewe’s part
of and within that crew there were
streets where designers
local street designers these guys were
very popular in the neighborhoods and
other neighborhoods except they couldn’t
sell to people outside the neighborhood
and this is where the online platform
came in through the online platform
could sell to people outside our
province
people outside our country and at times
people outside our continent and at this
point I was happy simply because I made
money and I was still cool and that was
it but as time went on I learned to
appreciate the fact that I was actually
contributing to solving an actual
problem and this problem was a
distribution problem not only a
distribution problem but I was playing a
part in this ecosystem that allowed
independent young entrepreneurs within
the fashion industry to actually
actively participate and this meant a
lot as time went on a year later with
earned enough money to develop the site
into a proper ecommerce sites
and I’m proud to say today that our HCC
online store is amongst the leading
independently owned online retail stores
and this is how it looks so businesses
are about solving problems and they too
have a lot of problems and we faced a
lot of challenges two years into the
business we had come to a point whereby
we were not making any progression with
our online sales and this called for
ground presence so the obvious choice is
to get a brick-and-mortar store but we
didn’t go that too it’s because of two
main challenges the first one is that we
were young we had so many ideas so many
things to do we couldn’t be confined in
a small space for eight hours every day
the second challenge was that we simply
could not we simply could not afford a
commercial space and this is an actual
reality for a lot of entrepreneurs so we
did more research and discovered this
concept of a mobile store I stole their
you’d pop up would you use to pop up
anyway so we went to a friend of ours
called computer computer does door
fittings and we introduced this concept
to him he loved it and he executed he
gave us the store that could fit into a
car boot or backseat of a car and could
be assembled within a few minutes and he
assembled to that within a fraction of
that time and this is how it looked it
was amazing so amazing that sometimes
when you pop up some people would be
more fascinated over the store than the
actual product that we were selling and
we took a mental note of this went back
did more research and discovered that
the more there are more entrepreneurs
out there that seek the same capability
so we went back to computer and proposed
the idea of starting this business that
would offer this product he bought into
it and eight months later we produced a
couple of products that gave capability
to young entrepreneurs this is a kind of
entrepreneur that lives in a compact
space
be it at home onus in a small apartment
this is a type of entrepreneur that
commutes using public transport and with
this product it allow him to have
furniture that shouldn’t be stored but
furniture that can be used at home and
whenever they want to retail they’ll use
this very same furniture so with this
said all these three identities are
simply not because I’m a genius
or my friends are genius at all one
thing we learned from that is that if we
have ideas we should just thought as
simple as that
just start with the little that you have
and allow yourself to develop in the
process and in the development process
we should seek innovation relevant
innovation innovation that makes sense
to an African context so that’s why it’s
important for us here today
to be like when we were kids playing in
the streets using the brakes using the
plastics to take what we have find
innovation within it to allow us firstly
to participate but not only stop there
but to construct more features more
products to allow more of us to
participate and this is the mission that
I and all of you here need to engage in
and that mission is to democratize
capability
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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