Earlier this year, I did a post (Beyond Borders – Free Air Tickets) on a competition that British Airways was running where 50 South African companies could win a Business Opportunity Grant with each Grant consisting of “10 return Business Class flights anywhere on the British Airways network”. The winners have finally been announced and include companies from an array of industries, including: Manufacturing, IT, Energy, Media, Healthcare Services, Telecommunications, Business Consulting & Engineering.
British Airways ran this initiative in four countries and received the highest number of applications from South African SMEs. The total number of applications were: South Africa, 1041; India, 614; Hong Kong, 180 and United Arab Emirates, 270. The value of business class travel awarded is R29million and the hope is that this will provide the local SMEs with the necessary platform to launch their businesses beyond SA borders.
Businesses afforded this great opportunity include:
The Broccoli Project
The Broccoli Project is an innovate rewards program for the poor that provides non-government organisations (NGO’s), funders and suppliers with a secure, measurable and efficient way to offer food security and rewards. Following its launch in the second half of 2008, the company developed a process and cloud based biometric technology called Broccoli Project Analytics that allows funders to track the deployment of donations and keep track of its members.
Mindleap
MindLeap was formed in 2007 with the goal of building an art consulting company. The company consults to corporate South Africa on art acquisitions, disposals, curation and conservation. It further consults on how art can be used to reflect not only the spirit of an organisation but also an awareness of the environment in which it operates.
Vilafonté Wines
Located in the Paarl-Simonsberg wine region in the Western Cape, South Africa, Vilafonté Wines is the first South African and American joint wine-making venture within the global wine community. It is a small vineyard that aims to create the first luxury wine brand from South Africa.
GetAGreatBoss.com
GetAGreatBoss.com is a young South African company with global aspirations. Since the launch of the website in late 2009, it has won an international award as one of the 10 Most Promising Digital Innovations in the world. The web-based company provides an alternative and innovative concept to getting a great boss. The company conducts a review of a boss’s management style, based on the views of the employees that work for that boss. If the results are favourable, then GetAGreatBoss.com links the results of the review to any job advert that the boss is trying to fill so that potential career-seekers can see what the boss will be like to work for even before applying for the position.
Cloud Publishing Services
Cloud Publishing, a small publishing services company operating from Cape Town, South Africa, has managed a number of interesting publishing and literacy projects in Southern and East Africa, the Middle East, South-East Asia and the Caribbean since it started in 1996.