This week saw history in the making as 17 passionate, inspiring young people attended the inaugural Imvelisi: Creating Enviropreneurs Bootcamp training programme in Pretoria.

The Imvelisi – Developing Enviropreneurs is aimed at developing the pipeline of potential entrepreneurs towards a greener economy, with a particular focus on water and biodiversity businesses.

Conceptualised and being implemented by the South African Young Water Professionals Network (YWP-ZA), and GreenMatter; Imvelisi is designed to improve the potential of aspiring enviropreneurs in gaining access into mainstream incubators and business funding streams.

Imvelisi 2015 is a pilot initiative that is partly funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and complements and works in partnership with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the Innovation Hub’s Climate Innovation Centre (CIC), and Impact Amplifiers among others.

Partners Awethu and GreenTalent have been contracted to develop and run the training programme and its developmental components.

Imvelisi has a particular focus on upskilling hand-picked participants in terms of the early ideation stages of business development; an appreciation of entrepreneurship as a possible career path; exploring the alignment of their ideas to national and local priorities; learning how to assess market potential; understanding the funding and partnership landscape; networking with entrepreneurs in this space; and developing pitching and presentation skills through a simulated “Dragons Den”.

Follow progress of this week’s course on twitter: @YWPZA and @GreenMatterZA.