Water-saving toilet wins first prize at Pitch and Polish

The 10-year anniversary edition of the ENGEN Pitch & Polish workshop and competition kicked off in Johannesburg on July 6.

Sponsored by ENGEN, Nedbank, Raizcorp and Caxton Local Media, the project sees participants and five contestants taken through a dynamic pitching workshop by Justin Cohen, a business strategist, international speaker and world-leading expert on pitching for business.

Cohen said no matter what the economic environment, there are problems to solve and wealth to be created. In fact, during tough economic times, there are even more opportunities as there are more problems to solve.

He also touched on the need for entrepreneurs to be optimistic. On average, entrepreneurs fail 3.8 times before they succeed. By cultivating a sense of optimism, entrepreneurs can more easily view failures and setbacks as an opportunity to learn and move on.

During the workshop delegates and five pre-selected competitors were taken through eight important aspects of pitching for investment. The first half ended with the first round of practice pitches by the five contestants. Each was asked to deliver a 30-second pitch as a basepoint to measure against their final competition pitches later in the day.

The five contestants were Kayla Ndlovu, who presented her idea for wedding-plan insurance; Tshepo Monagatane, who is developing an artificial intelligence teaching assistant; Simonne Solarsh, who has developed a range of products for curly hair; Monni Mokwena, who has patented a water-saving toilet system and Amanda Jojo, who would like to incorporate a counselling service offering into her existing tea and coffee shop business.

The second half of the workshop was followed by another practice round for the contestants but this time they had a full minute. The key was to incorporate the eight aspects of pitching covered during the first and second rounds of the workshop.

The actual competition followed with contestants given a full three minutes to pitch their businesses and themselves.

The judges were Benny Thabejane (ENGEN Transformation and Stakeholder Engagement manager), Regina Gounden (Nedbank Small Business and Professional Banking provincial manager) and David Mills (Raizcorp Sales and Marketing Guide).

The winner was Mokwena, with Solarsh second and Jojo third.

Each of the three winners took home a cash prize presented by ENGEN’s Benny Thabejane, with crowd-favourite Mokwena going through to the second round of the competition in Johannesburg later this year.

The project manager of the ENGEN Pitch & Polish programme, Bronwyn Echardt, thanked ENGEN, who has been the title sponsor for the past eight years, and Nedbank, who has been a sponsor for four years. She also thanked Raizcorp and Caxton Local Media for their involvement.

For more information, visit www.pitchandpolish.com.

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