The Black Umbrellas business lounge, recently launched at the Regent Business School campus in Auckland Park, is a place where start-up entrepreneurs can receive assistance to grow their businesses – offering a one-stop shop for empowering youth and entrepreneurs.
Against the backdrop of South Africa’s high unemployment rate, entrepreneurship is critical, as it offers individuals and small businesses a way to earn income while providing opportunities for sustainable job creation.
However, the lack of alignment between ideas and innovation, and the skills to succeed, results in a staggering amount of entrepreneurs failing in the first few years of start-up.
Black Umbrellas is a partner entity of the Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation, and this is the first of three business lounges to be run nationally with Regent’s employment arm redHUB. The launch of the business lounge demonstrates the aim of mainstreaming entrepreneurship as a career path.
The space is geared at meeting the business and educational needs of students and entrepreneurs, providing them with access to wi-fi, printing facilities, professional reception staff and boardrooms for use.
Hoosen Essof, Operations Manager of redHUB, a specialised unit of Regent Business School, said the Black Umbrellas business lounge is open to students at Regent as well as non-students who can research and learn at a place where they can consult and meet with mentors and coaches.
“The RedHUB offers programmes for business start-up, business foundation, business management and financial management.
“This business lounge is extremely beneficial as Black Umbrellas has provided a proven and established programme which delivers efficiently to students,” he said.
Essof said there is no need to recreate systems and training programmes. RedHUB and Black Umbrellas can offer the requisite services immediately.
Xolile Ndumndum, Black Umbrellas Chief Operating Officer, said the organisation aims to expose individuals to the world of business by empowering upcoming entrepreneurs with knowledge and skills to create a sustainable start-up business by showing them the why, when and how to build a business through practical and case-study based education.
“Black Umbrellas offers an internationally-acclaimed virtual incubation programme. Through training, mentorship and business coaching on the organisation’s virtual incubator, entrepreneurs can solidify their business practices and become sustainable in increasingly competitive environments. The business incubators offer SMEs short-term and long-term co-spacing.
“Between redHUB and Black Umbrellas, we are able to assist entrepreneurs in any stage of development, from idea generation to validation, to regulatory compliance and growing their business and funding it, as well as facilitating procurement opportunities. This is in effective one-stop shop,” he said.
