Irish Tech Challenge South Africa

Impact Amplifier (IA) was appointed by the Irish Embassy in South Africa to manage and administer the pilot phase of the Irish Tech Challenge Fund, which aims to assist South African tech entrepreneurs in their quest for global networking opportunities and global growth strategies. The Irish Embassy partnered with the Department of Science & Innovation (DSI) and the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) to help ensure the project’s success.

• ‍Research project - The project commenced with an initial research project which aimed to understand the entrepreneur ecosystem landscape in both South Africa and Ireland better, and subsequently justify the need for the pilot project.
• Stakeholder engagement- IA engaged with various stakeholders in Ireland and South Africa to support the programme and entrepreneurs as needed.
• Pilot launch – IA facilitated the virtual and physical launch of the Tech Challenge fund in February 2022.
• Entrepreneur selection – IA developed relevant review tools and selected the top 5 entrepreneurs from multiple applications received. These entrepreneurs were selected from four selection rounds with different criteria.
• Entrepreneur support- IA supported selected entrepreneurs  to develop their country entry strategies for Ireland and fill up their itineraries, and also helped to  introduce relevant stakeholders‍
• Irish Trip support- IA accompanied the selected entrepreneurs to Ireland and helped them to fully immerse themselves in Ireland's innovation ecosystem and build relationships there.

August 2023

Following an initial research project, IA managed and administered the Tech Challenge’s pilot project whereby five South African tech entrepreneurs were supported. Apart from supporting the selected tech entrepreneurs, Impact Amplifier invested quite heavily in building lasting relationships with relevant ecosystem players in both Ireland and South Africa.