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0 viewsAnika Berendt stood smiling behind a table covered with multi-colored hoodscarves—essentially reversible scarves with hoods attached– near the entrance in the Leslie Commerce building at the University of Cape Town. Students gathered around the table, discussing color combinations and prices and adjusting the hoodscarves on their heads. This was just one of the products designed, produced, marketed and sold by UCT students.
Berendt was a member of a group in the Genesis Project, a program conducted every year since 1996 at the university that promotes leadership and entrepreneurialism. Only 30 percent of those who apply for the program are accepted.
“It’s quite a rigorous screening process,” said Stuart Hendry, Convener of the Genesis Project. “[The program] is carefully structured to promote leadership development.”
Students split into groups of 7 or 8 adhering to the demographic of their class and are given a startup capital of only R50 at the beginning of the year.
“They want to show you that even if you don’t have any startup capital you can make it,” Berendt said.
Groups vie for the Genesis Award, determined by net profit from their product as well as academic honors.
The concept design for 2010 was a “green” (environmentally-friendly) or “brown” (socially sustainable), student-market fashion accessory.
“You basically learn in the course that everything exists in the world already, and you have to learn to keep your eyes open, and you have to try to put things together as we did with the hoodscarf,” Berendt said.
The group leading in net profit produced Wingers, the sleeves for the side mirrors of a car featuring the South African flag. The timing was perfect, Hendry said. The group’s wingers were the first into the market; China’s wingers took six weeks to ship to South Africa.
“It was the World Cup so people lost their minds,” said Sidney Chirombo, another member of Berendt’s group.
The group’s net profit was approximately R250,000 as of Wednesday, according to Hendry, but everyone who participates wins in the long-run.
“Groups that fail actually learn more than groups that don’t… The dudes who everything just went wrong, when he goes on into the business world he actually has the upper hand,” said Chirombo.
Some groups with “brown” products donated their time and profits to a charity.
“During the whole course… what they teach us is that you have to give back to the society you operate in, that charity is very important, and so our whole course together with the marketing diploma actually raised R75,000 for the Emasithandane Children’s Home,” Berendt said.
Hendry focused on leadership development with the students.
“I like to challenge the paradigm of who they [students] are as South Africans and their responsibility as South Africans… Who creates jobs? Entrepreneurs,” Hendry said.
Hendry is the director of special projects at Southern Africa Sustainable Development Initiative (SASDI) building centers for orphans in townships.
Hendry said that he “treats the symptoms” of poverty, but entrepreneurs solve the actual problems. Entrepreneurs create employment, and employment destroys poverty.
What is the most significant lesson Hendry wants his students to take away from the project?
“How easy it is to make money,” Hendry said.