Student Entrepreneurship Week (SEW2018)
For organisers

How do universities make this happen?
One dynamic, visionary leader in a university is all it takes. This champion for entrepreneurship (typically a DVC or Dean) takes the initiative to mobilise other entities and individuals in the university who share the vision for student entrepreneurship or work in space of entrepreneurship. They usually include partners and expertise from the business and academic community who are keen to contribute and have the necessary skills and experience. Through the combined internal efforts of entrepreneurship academics, technology transfer offices, support professionals, centres for entrepreneurship and/or innovation, incubators, science parks, social entrepreneurship entities, careers services entities, student coordinators and student societies, a programme is designed. Universities utilise their networks and supporters to raise sponsorships for their activities.

What about TVET colleges?
Ground-breaking partnerships between entrepreneurship champions at universities and TVET colleges are being developed in Kwazulu-Natal right now. TVET colleges are most welcome to participate and ideally partner with their neighbouring universities. The EDHE team would gladly assist in facilitating such collaboration. We encourage universities to reach out to their TVET neighbours for inclusion, albeit on a pilot basis as first steps.

What are the roles of DHET and USAf?
As the custodians of the EDHE Programme, DHET through the UCDP has approved a budget for SEW2018. The administration of this budget takes place through USAf. The full EDHE staff contingent (consisting of a Programme Director, Project Manager, and Administrative Officer) has not yet been appointed, so execution is driven by the recently appointed Programme Director: Entrepreneurship, with the support of a highly capable Administrative Assistant. This might have seemed like a fairly lean team, had it not been for the excellent network of champions for entrepreneurship who own the EDHE space across the country – they do the magic!

What is the role of the EDHE team?
The EDHE team is responsible for:

• Co-hosting the national launch of SEW2018 at Tshwane University of Technology;
• Organising a national roadshow consisting of a one-day programme to raise awareness of entrepreneurship as a means of participating in the economy;
• Providing the first R10 000 prize money per university to winners of pitching competitions;
• Generally liaising with university partners to assist with:
• Marketing;
• Media exposure; and
• Introductions to potential partners and service providers.

Where does the EDHE Roadshow fit in?
From the EDHE Office, we would like to roll out a national roadshow consisting of a one-day programme that can go off the beaten tracks to the lesser visited universities and campuses (where the need is probably the greatest). The roadshow is scheduled to run in parallel and complimentary to university SEW2018 programmes. The outcomes of the recent Workshop SEW2018 at the EDHE Lekgotla 2018 suggested the inclusion of, for example, the following items in the one-day roadshow programme, ideally with an edutainment approach:

• Central information and contact point
• High-profile keynote speaker
• Local celebrity
• Entrepreneurship board games
• Business simulation activities
• Masterclasses
• Pitching sessions
• Inclusion of best activities by key partners in SEW201

Enactus has again offered to support as widely as possible through their members at all the universities.

Sponsorship opportunity
Although there is a limited and very specific budget for SEW2018, substantial sponsorships will help to increase the reach of SEW2018 to the universities and campuses that are remote, often overlooked and in contexts of particularly high unemployment. We are looking for a limited number of key sponsors to help us reach these campuses. the EDHE Roadshow, a first of its kind, will be highly visible and could have significant benefits for key sponsors. Potential sponsors can contact Dr Norah Clarke directly on norah@usaf.ac.za or telephone 021 911 3119 during office hours.

Partnership opportunity for entrepreneurship service providers
Entities which you represent would like to participate in SEW2018, be it at universities or as part of the roadshow are invited to contact Dr Norah Clarke on norah@usaf.ac.za or telephone 021 911 3119 during office hours.

Communication and information platforms
All things EDHE will henceforth be communicated on the official EDHE website (www.edhe.co.za). We aim to have a significant social media presence to increase the visibility of universities and their commitment to support student entrepreneurship. To increase the national and university footprint, we request that participants use all available communication, marketing and media platforms, using #EDHE2018 throughout. It would be hugely beneficial if university leadership could arrange for the participation of each university’s strategic communications office to support and promote the local programmes and activities as part of national SEW2018. The existing (yet still underutilised) EDHE social media platforms through which we hope to share national and individual university activities are:

• Twitter: @EDHEStudents
• Facebook: EDHE Student Entrepreneurship
• Given student preferences, we need to all have an Instagram presence, which lends itself to the sharing of visual content of activities at the different universities.

Please remember communicate frequently and to tag/share with the EDHE team – we have no other way of staying updated on what is happening where.

Measurement and Reporting
Our target is to reach approximately 5000 students per university with the SEW2018 awareness campaign. In order to evaluate the impact of SEW2018 and allocate support and resources for SEW2019 to universities, we request that universities keep attendance registers for smaller events, record numbers attending larger events. We want to avoid our EDHE champions to be burdened with additional administration, but kindly request measuring and brief reporting on the following Indicators:

Numbers of students attending specific activities in the programme;
Number of social media followers (pre and post SEW2018);
Number of students with existing businesses; and
Number of students considering entrepreneurship as a career.