Republikein Newspaper

Staff reporter

In the start-up world, they say, “Don’t leave hold of your common sense. Think about what you are doing and how the technology can enhance it. Don’t think about technology first”- Esther Dyson, Investor.

This wise quote ran as a thread through the Future Females Business School Programme recently hosted by the StartUp Namibia Incubation and Innovation Centre, Basecamp.

A total of forty-five start-ups from the Future Females Business School Programme participated and were engaged the use of tech platforms for business purposes.

The Future Females Business School is a three-month programme for female entrepreneurs who have a business idea, or an early-stage business, ready to take the next step, or ‘upskill’ and utilise technology to bring their businesses to life.

The programme is a partnership between StartUp Namibia and Future Females. The StartUp Namibia project is a joint Namibian-German technical cooperation project for Sustainable Economic Development, implemented by GIZ with its partners, the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade and City of Windhoek, funded by the German government.

Key to start-up development is finding and using the correct tools while the business is in early development stage. The training programme focused on growth, practical actions and activities to get the business or idea to the next level as well as being an empowering community platform to support the female entrepreneur in her journey.

In an additional digital empowerment workshop, the training set out and explained the most effective paths to use right tools to create and elevate their online presence which effectively communicates to their clients or potential customers.

In the digital age, and especially considering the Covid-19 pandemic, effective online communication is key for start-up success now more than ever.

Lauren Dallas, the Future Females Business School co-founder, was on hand to explain step-by-step how to effectively use Instagram for business, as one core channel to improve business visibility. She also discussed the benefit of having an effective and attractive landing pages for your organisation’s social media and website platforms.

Adel Oosthuizen, the Future Females ambassador for the Windhoek Chapter, revealed powerful ways of exploiting free or low-cost tools and platforms for marketing and sales.

One of developmental aspects of the Accelerator Programme is to challenge the start-ups to find ways to be more brand conscious.

This is an essential aspect for the growth of any business, as this drives the sales funnel. Efraim Vilho, StartUp Namibia’s ICT manager, did just that by providing the women with step by step, methodologies and guidelines.

As well as exposing the participants to web hosting and domain registration to empower them to use the available tools to create and manage their own websites.

“This was an ‘accelerating’ moment for all the women participating as they came to realise that technology is actually not scary, it is an enabler and if used correctly by an up-and-coming business can propel the business forward” relayed Emilie Iyambo, head of programmes at StartUp Namibia.