A Great Story to Tell!

In its 10th year of entrepreneur incubation and development, SmartXchange is proud to announce the success of its 2014 SMME Awards & 10 Year Celebration. This momentous and prestigious event took place on the 03rd November 2014 at the Southern Sun Elangeni Hotel. Benchmarked as one of SmartXchange’s most prestigious events, the evening highlighted and celebrated the collaboration of SmartXchange and the SMME’s in the efforts of making SmartXchange the largest technology hub in Africa and creates awareness of the excellent services offered by the SmartXchange SMME’s.
The ceremony was graced with the presence of the eThekwini Municipality Speaker, Councillor Logie Naidoo, who delivered a message of support that highlighted how SmartXchange has been a flagship project for the city. Mr Sipho Zikode, Acting CEO of Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) presented the keynote address. In his address, Mr Zikode commended the partnerships that exist between the private and public sector and made it known that it is these partnerships and incubators like SmartXchange that allow their vision as the Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) to be achieved.
In celebrating 10 years of incubation excellence SmartXchange definitely had a good story to tell. From the graduation of six incubates, Alkesh Singh of Astel, Shabnum Gounden of Kuvira Business Consulting, Mohammed Jhavery of MJ & A Consulting, Udesh Naidu of MPlanet, Zibuko Mcunu of Izibuko Multimedia and Nitesh Ramsaroop of Nitsak; to the announcement of the SmartXchange TIA Innovation Seed fund recipients, Bilal Kathrada, Lloyd Lopes, Richard Keller and  Rishane Rajkoomar. The SmartXchange funders, eThekwini Municipality, Seda, Mict Seta and TIA also received certificates of recognition for their financial support to SmartXchange along with the seven SmartXchange most supportive corporates, Vodacom, Dimension Data, Adapt IT, Internet Solutions, Neotel, Mustek and KPMG.
The epitome of the evening was the SMME awards segment, where Mshazi Photographers won first place and SIFCO Trading was runner up under the category Best Newcomer 2014, Egsibit won first place and Durban Motion Pictures was runner up under the category Best Performing Women in ICT 2014, Egsibit won first place and ZJ Africa Investment was runner up under the category SMME of The Year 2014. All prizes won by the SMME’s where sponsorships from Vodacom, Adapt IT, Dimension Data, Neotel, Mustek, Egsibit and Dynatech. SmartXchange is humbled by the ongoing commitment shown by these partners and aims to continuously nurture these relationships. Mr Albert Breeds, the Managing Executive of Vodacom, in his message from the sponsor, expressed Vodacom’s commitment to the SMME market and that Vodacom’s intention is to work with SmartXchange to identify a number of SMME’s within the organisation which they can grow and develop into valuable partners to Vodacom.
As SmartXchange turned 10 years old, three SmartXchange members were also awarded certificates for 10 Years of service excellence to SmartXchange, namely, Mr Themba Ngcobo, current Chairperson of the Board of SmartXchange; Mr Jonathan Naidoo, current Chief Executive Officer of SmartXchange and Dr Rajesh Neerachand, current Central Services Manager of SmartXchange.
SmartXchange is confident that, working together with the private and public sector as well as the SMME’s, the SmartXchange incubator will see another 10 years come to fruition.

Ends