EDHE ABSA

Innovation Challenge 2025

The EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge is a strategic initiative aimed at catalysing innovation and entrepreneurship within South Africa’s 26 public universities. This programme is designed to identify, nurture, and support the transformation of student and alumni innovations into viable, scalable ventures that address pressing societal challenges.

It’s more than just a Competition:

The challenge offers a structured platform for the development and commercialisation of high-potential ideas, equipping participants with the tools, mentorship, and exposure needed to navigate the entrepreneurial journey. The core mission is to foster a culture of innovation, stimulate entrepreneurial mindsets, and accelerate the translation of research and creative solutions into impactful enterprises

The EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge is designed to foster a culture of entrepreneurship, address graduate unemployment, and contribute to South Africa’s economic development. It also allows Absa Bank to play a pivotal role in shaping the country’s future of innovation and entrepreneurship.

The goals of the EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge are:

  • To promote innovation among university students and alumni students.
  • To support the development of entrepreneurial skills among university students and alumni students.
  • To create a pipeline of innovative solutions to pressing societal issues.

This initiative aligns with Absa’s Financial Inclusion Through Entrepreneurship Strategy, which seeks to pave the way for youth to take entrepreneurial action. It looks at the individual, the institutions that individuals are a part of, as well as the initiatives with which Absa partners to pathway youth into entrepreneurial action. The initiative recognises that there are key components which are required to set up thriving entrepreneurs, the individual and their propensity towards entrepreneurial action, the system that supports the individual (higher education and training institutions), the content they are exposed to in building their entrepreneurial muscle, and the ecosystem which they are a part of and whether that is enabling on inhibiting to entrepreneurial action.

This project aligns with Absa’s corporate citizenship strategy by fostering youth entrepreneurship, a critical component of socio-economic development and job creation in South Africa. The initiative targets the integration of entrepreneurial skills within higher education, enabling students and graduates to actively contribute to sustainable economic growth. By addressing graduate unemployment and fostering innovation, this project embodies Absa’s commitment to youth empowerment and economic resilience.

The EDHE initiative directly addresses systemic challenges such as high youth unemployment, limited entrepreneurial ecosystems, and inadequate alignment between education and industry demands. The collaboration with EDHE enables Absa to strengthen its brand as a leader in innovation and social impact, aligning with its core values of shared growth and inclusive prosperity. This partnership creates a unique opportunity for Absa to expand its SME client base, enhance brand visibility, and establish long-term relationships with South Africa’s future business leaders and innovators.

The EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge stands apart from the Entrepreneurship Intervarsity in both scope and ambition, offering a bold and inclusive platform for fostering innovation and entrepreneurship across South Africa’s 26 public universities. Unlike the Intervarsity, which is exclusively open to currently enrolled university students and focuses on showcasing operational, revenue-generating businesses across categories such as tech, social impact, and commercialised academic research, the Innovation Challenge is exclusive for South African citizens, contestants are permitted to submit more than one entry in the competition and the challenge broadens its reach to include alumni who graduated between (2022 to 2025).

This inclusivity allows the Innovation Challenge to capture a wider pool of entrepreneurial talent and drive the commercialisation of early-stage and growth-stage ideas that may still be in development. It introduces a transformative journey, from a national call for innovative solutions in key sectors like healthtech, greentech, fintech, and bluetech, to structured bootcamps, expert mentorship, and pitch refinement. The programme culminates in generous prize funding and access to a formal post-competition incubation phase, enabling participants to transition their concepts into scalable, impact-driven ventures.

With its end-to-end development model and focus on problem-solving and societal relevance, the Innovation Challenge supports the long-term growth of South Africa’s innovation ecosystem. It is backed by a committed corporate partner invested in unlocking national potential through entrepreneurship and innovation, making it not just a competition, but a launchpad for meaningful and sustainable change.

This competition is not about launching the next ordinary business. It is about identifying and nurturing ideas that break the mould, challenge the status quo, and demonstrate transformative thinking. We are looking for:

  • Innovation and originality;
  • Problem-solution fit;
  • Solution-market fit;
  • Transformative impact;
  • Radical creativity over replication;
  • Feasibility and development potential;
  • Sustainable solutions to emerging or overlooked problems;
  • Concepts that reimagine industries, communities, or systems;
  • Future-oriented thinking, not just market readiness;
  • Scalability/Replicability and impact;
  • Innovation beyond technology.

Contact Details

Calls and messages are only answered between 08:00 and 17:00.

Key Components of the Challenge:

  • A nationwide call for entries to source innovative concepts.
  • A rigorous evaluation process to identify the top 20 high-potential innovations.
  • A boot camp and mentorship programme to equip participants with essential skills.
  • A final pitch event to showcase the top 20 innovations and reward the top 5 innovators.
  • A dedicated incubation phase to provide ongoing support for developing and scaling winning solutions.

Winning Prizes:

  • 1st Prize: R500 000

  • 2nd Prize: R250 000

  • 3rd Prize: R150 000

  • 4th Prize: R100 000

  • 5th Prize: R50 000

Launch Event

The national launch of the EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge will take place on Wednesday, 25 June 2025, from 10:00 to 14:00 at the Student Centre, Main Campus of Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT), located at 511 Griffiths Mxenge Highway, Umlazi, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. This hybrid event will accommodate 70 in-person participants, with broader access via live streaming on the EDHE YouTube Channel.

Hosted in collaboration with MUT, the launch reflects a strategic alignment between Absa, EDHE, and institutions driving inclusive innovation. As a township-based, historically disadvantaged institution (HDI), MUT exemplifies the transformative power of entrepreneurship in higher education. Under the leadership of Professor Nokuthula Sibiya, Vice-Chancellor and Principal and recipient of the EDHE Rising Star DVC Award (2023), the university has become a national model for embedding entrepreneurship through teaching, research, and institutional culture. MUT’s ongoing plans to establish a Centre for Entrepreneurship signal its commitment to supporting early-stage ventures with workspaces, mentorship, and resources.

Professor Sibiya’s role as Deputy Chairperson of USAf’s World of Work Strategy Group further highlights MUT’s strategic position in driving system-wide change. Hosting this launch at MUT affirms Absa’s commitment to meaningful, high-impact partnerships with institutions championing innovation at the margins.

The event will draw a diverse audience, including student and alumni entrepreneurs, academic and support staff, Absa representatives, university executives, and stakeholders from KwaZulu-Natal universities. It signals the beginning of a national journey to integrate entrepreneurial skills into higher education, empower graduates, and unlock scalable innovations. The Innovation Challenge is part of a broader mission to tackle systemic challenges such as graduate unemployment, limited entrepreneurial ecosystems, and weak education-industry linkages, aligning with Absa’s vision for youth empowerment and economic resilience.

Bootcamp and Mentorship

The Bootcamp for the EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge will take place in Gauteng (Septemebr: Date to be confirmed) and aims to provide the 20 finalists with a comprehensive two-day in-person experience designed to enhance their business and pitch skills. Held at one central venue, the bootcamp will cover essential topics such as design thinking, lean startup methodology, financial modelling, go-to-market strategy, product-market fit, and pitching for funding. These topics are aimed at refining participants’ innovations, strengthening their business models, and preparing them to deliver compelling pitches to potential investors.

In addition to the workshops, participants will receive hands-on support, feedback on their ideas, and practical tools to refine their business strategies. The bootcamp will also feature an online eight-week one-on-one mentoring programme, ensuring ongoing guidance and assistance throughout the programme. By the end of the bootcamp, participants will be better equipped to present investment-ready, scalable, and financially viable business ideas at the final pitch event that will be hosted on the 19th of November 2025 in Gauteng.

Final Pitch and Award

The top 20 teams will pitch their refined innovations to a panel of judges on 19 November 2025 at a central venue in Gauteng. The judges will select the top 5 finalists, who will be awarded prizes on 21 November 2025 and move on to the post-EDHE Entrepreneurship Intervarsity incubation programme. The judges will seek teams that have developed innovative solutions to pressing societal issues.

The top five prizes in the competition will reward the most promising and impactful innovations to the value of R1 050 000.00.   These prizes aim to recognise not only creativity and societal impact but also the financial feasibility, scalability, and potential for long-term sustainability of the innovations. Participants are encouraged to present business ideas that are not only innovative but also viable, demonstrating clear pathways for growth, market access, and investment attraction.

EDHE INNOVATION CHALLENGE: DRIVING CHANGE THROUGH INNOVATION

The EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge is a dynamic, future-focused youth-entrepreneurship competition designed to uncover and support bold, original solutions that address South Africa’s and the world’s most pressing societal challenges. At the heart of the Challenge is a commitment to innovation, not just in terms of advanced technology, but in any form that brings about meaningful transformation. Whether it’s a cutting-edge digital platform, a new social system, a policy shift, or a reimagined business model, the competition seeks ideas that break new ground and have the power to reshape communities, industries, and systems.

This Challenge embraces both tech-driven and non-tech innovations, understanding that the power of entrepreneurship lies in the creativity and problem-solving mindset of young people. Students are encouraged to think beyond conventional boundaries, offering solutions that are innovative, impactful, feasible, and scalable, regardless of the tools or platforms they use.

These categories serve as a guide rather than a limit, ensuring that students from all academic disciplines, backgrounds, and fields of interest can participate. Whether your idea fits into health, manufacturing, education, finance, climate action, agriculture, or the blue economy, or crosses multiple sectors, what matters most is that it offers a fresh perspective and real potential for impact.

While the EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge does not restrict entries to specific categories or industries, it encourages students to align their innovative solutions with real-world challenges and opportunities. To guide and inspire thinking, the competition draws from broad areas that reflect the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), offering a meaningful framework for global and local impact.

These themes are not rigid categories, but rather points of reference to help participants identify how their ideas contribute to solving societal problems. Solutions may cut across sectors or fall outside traditional boundaries – what matters most is the originality, relevance, and impact potential of the innovation.

Examples of potential focus areas include (but are not limited to):

  • Health & Wellness Innovation: Improving health systems, access to care, mental health support, or community wellness initiatives.
  • Education & Learning Innovation: Enhancing how people access, experience, or benefit from education, skills development, inclusive learning, and lifelong learning.
  • Environmental & Climate Innovation: Addressing climate action, biodiversity, circular economy, sustainable living, conservation, and waste reduction.
  • Financial & Economic Inclusion: Creating access to financial services, supporting informal economies, enabling entrepreneurship, and promoting local economic development.
  • Agriculture & Food Innovation: Improving food systems, smart farming, food security, agri-processing, and rural livelihoods.
  • Oceans & Water-Based Innovation: Promoting sustainability in marine and freshwater ecosystems, responsible fishing, aquaculture, and the blue economy.
  • Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH): Ensuring access to clean water, safe sanitation, hygiene awareness, and low-cost WASH innovations for communities.
  • Housing & Infrastructure Innovation: Developing affordable housing solutions, energy-efficient building models, transport systems, and resilient infrastructure.
  • Social Justice & Inclusion: Promoting gender equality, disability inclusion, youth empowerment, access to justice, and addressing social inequality.
  • Creative Economy & Cultural Innovation: Leveraging arts, design, heritage, and creative industries for economic empowerment and cultural preservation.
  • Governance, Civic Engagement & Policy Innovation: Encouraging citizen participation, transparency tools, public policy solutions, and service delivery improvements.
  • Technology for Social Good: Applying AI, data, mobile platforms, robotics, or blockchain to solve social, environmental, or economic problems.
  • Mental Health & Community Support: Addressing stigma, improving access to mental health resources, and strengthening psychosocial support systems.
  • Urban Innovation & Smart Cities: Developing solutions for urban living challenges such as waste management, energy use, mobility, and inclusive urban planning.

Participants are encouraged to challenge norms, explore intersections between sectors, and propose unique tech or non-tech solutions that respond creatively to emerging or overlooked problems, with the ultimate goal of driving real and lasting change.

Phases of the Competition

The EDHE ABSA Innovation Challenge will unfold in several key phases designed to guide participants through the process from application to incubation.

  • Phase 1: Awareness campaign (17 June–24 June)

  • Phase 2: Official Launch (25 June)

  • Phase 3: Entries Close on 8 August (2 weeks extension)

  • Phase 4: Shortlisting by University Coordinators (28 July – 8 August)

  • Phase 5: Evaluations and shortlisting of 20 ideas, followed by announcement of participants (25 – 29 August)

  • Phase 6: Bootcamp and mentor allocation (September – date to be confrimed)

  • Phase 7: Mentorship Programme over 8 weeks/ 8 contact sessions (between 6 September – 14 November)

  • Phase 7 – Finals pitching and Awards Event (22 September – 14 November)

  • Phase 8: Incubation for Top 5 winners (December 2025 – March 2026).

Incubation Programme

This phase is crucial for transforming the winning innovations from the innovation challenge into viable businesses or initiatives. It involves providing comprehensive support and resources to the top finalists to help them develop and scale their solutions.  Successful ideas will be incubated through a programme designed by EDHE and managed in partnership with university owned hubs and incubators at university campuses. This will potentially provide access to co-working spaces, continued mentorship, networking opportunities with experts, as well as follow-up funding opportunities. The Incubation programme aims to:

  • To provide comprehensive support to incubated ventures to accelerate their development.
  • To equip entrepreneurs with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary for success.
  • To facilitate access to potential funding and investment opportunities.
  • To foster a strong network of support and collaboration.
  • To maximise the societal and economic impact of the incubated ventures.

The following summarises key components of the Incubation Programme:

EDHE aims to collaborate closely with university-owned hubs and privately owned incubators at various campuses to deliver incubation support. This leverages existing infrastructure and expertise within the universities.

Customised Incubation Plans:
Each winning team will receive a customised incubation plan tailored to their specific needs and the stage of their solution

Co-working Spaces:
Winners can access co-working spaces at their university hubs or partner facilities. This provides a dedicated workspace, fostering collaboration and a professional environment.

Mentorship:
Building on the mentorship provided during the challenge, winners will receive ongoing mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs, industry experts, and academics.  Mentors will provide guidance in areas such as business strategy, product development, marketing, finance, and legal issues.

Networking Opportunities:
The Incubation Programme will facilitate networking opportunities with potential investors, industry partners, customers, and other key stakeholders, depending on the business’s readiness.  Winners will be integrated into the broader EDHE network, providing access to a wide range of resources and connections.

Follow-up Funding Opportunities:
The programme will help connect winners with potential follow-up funding sources, such as seed funding, venture capital, or grants.  Winners will receive training and support to prepare them for pitching their innovations to investors.

Workshops and Training:
The Incubation Programme will offer workshops and training sessions on advanced business topics relevant to scaling a startup. These may include financial management, intellectual property protection, marketing and sales, and team building.

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