The Emerging Entrepreneur Awards showcase young companies (less than three years old) that are bringing interesting early-stage technology to market or using existing technology in novel ways.
The event forms part of the department of science & technology's annual Technology Top 100 awards.
These companies face particular challenges over and above those faced by every start-up entrepreneur. Not only must they grapple with access to capital and markets, but they need to overcome other, unique hurdles. They may have to confront the issues of intellectual property ownership - and theft; or they may require regulatory approval from the likes of the Medicines Control Council - generally a fraught process.
And then, when they do get to market, competitors are lying in wait.
Ten entrepreneurs were singled out as having the potential to succeed and one company is named the Most Promising.
In addition to the 10 emerging companies (featured on these pages), three other organisations received a special mention for developing technology with a social benefit. They were: Cell-Life, which has developed an intelligent tool for the dispensing and monitoring of antiretroviral drugs and whose vision is to become the backbone of managing HIV/Aids in Africa; the Tshwane University of Technology's Institute of Advanced Tooling, which has developed a new method of tooling manufacture that reduces the man-hour component in toolmaking; and the Dumisani Mzamane African Institute of Kidney Disease, which has developed a way of helping provide state-of-the-art care to patients with chronic diseases.
