South Africa Scaling Out For Impact
Addressing the interdependence of water, energy and food security is a priority for the Scaling Out For Impact (SOFI) programme. By facilitating collaborative research and development projects between UK and South Africa SMMEs, we aim to find and offer wide reaching, affordable innovative solutions, to improve the accessibility of water, energy and food in South Africa townships.
Co-creating new innovative solutions
SOFI is co-funded and delivered by Innovate UK and strategic partner Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) in South Africa. The programme is designed to support a cohort of UK and South African innovative Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) through a structured process to collaborate and develop locally scalable and affordable innovations.
Evidence from the previous programme demonstrated that with the right support and connections to existing knowledge and expertise both in the UK and in South Africa (including potential collaboration partners), the innovators / SMMEs can:
- co-create new solutions to development challenges identified by communities in South Africa
- co-create appropriate business models to generate new economic activity in South Africa and potentially, beyond
- help build capacity for innovation and enterprise development in South Africa township communities.
The primary focus of this programme is to ensure wide reaching impact for communities.
Acknowledgement: With thanks to Business Support Consultant mLab, Nitrous and Zevoli Growth Partners who supported with SMME recruitment onto the programme.
Delivered jointly by Innovate UK and TIA in South Africa.
Building strong UK-SA partnerships
The cohorts will be supported to form partnerships that will be able to apply for collaborative project funding to test their innovations with communities with the aim of demonstrating potential impact and scalability of the innovations locally in South Africa.
Following a closed competition process, the programme aims to accelerate innovations needed to create new or improved technologies around the food, energy and water nexus through UK-South African partnerships. Funding is contributed by Innovate UK and TIA, respectively. The funding will support new brokered partnerships between UK and SA organisations to develop locally scalable and affordable innovations that address challenges in last-mile delivery within the water, food and energy nexus.
The solutions will be tested and implemented in four selected provinces in South Africa – Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and Easter Cape – in supporting innovation for inclusive development locally.
Stats
The cohort comprises of 38 SMMEs - 19 of whom are from the UK and 19 from South Africa –identified through a focused selection process in both countries.
38
SMMEs
19
UK orgs
19
Africa orgs
Cohort profiles
Read all about the UK and South Africa SMMEs cohort profiles and if of interest, contact the organisations.
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Scaling Out For Impact (SOFI-2)
For reference please see the SOFI Round 2 competition for full details on the collaborative project funding that was available for UK and SA SMMEs.
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Related News
01/11/2024
Follow us on the Scaling Out For Impact (SOFI 2) South Africa food, energy, and water collaborative project partners visit to the UK
A delegation of UK and South African small businesses are meeting in London from the 4-7 November 2024 to discuss their collaborative projects. These strategic partnerships are accelerating UK and South African innovations in food, energy and water as well as positively impacting the local and wider community.
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Related programmes
Global Alliance Africa
This Innovate UK Global Alliance Africa 6-year (2019-2025) project funded by UK International Development aims to build new and stronger UK-African partnerships to maximise the creation of inclusive market access, funding and investment opportunities through innovation knowledge transfer between the UK, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
Collaborative R&D Funding
Collaborative R&D activities will leverage funding, networks and expertise in order to facilitate UK-Africa R&D partnerships in key thematic areas of mutual interest.