Our Work
The programmes and projects behind our three areas of work, and the founders they have reached.
Ecosystem & Community
Startup Grind East London is our flagship community programme: a licensed chapter of Startup Grind, the global founder network that runs in partnership with Google for Startups. Since 2018 it has brought the Eastern Cape's entrepreneurs together through fireside chats with people who have built real businesses, masterclasses, and events.
We have hosted many speakers since 2018. These four are among the people who shaped the chapter.
December 2018 · our first fireside chat
Mqondisi Goba
Enterprise Development Specialist, ELIDZ Science & Technology Park
The chapter's very first fireside chat. Goba showed founders that the tools to turn an idea into a physical product, from 3D printing to precision manufacturing, were already within reach in East London.
May 2019
Lindile Xoko
MTN
Xoko, who built Cisco's European SME channel across seven markets, made the case that ICT could turn the Eastern Cape into a globally competitive agricultural hub, and that the answers would come from the region's own entrepreneurs.
March 2023 · our relaunch
Vuyani Jarana
CEO, Ilitha Telecommunications
Brought in to keynote the chapter's relaunch after the Covid hiatus. Jarana, who has run Vodacom Business and restructured South African Airways, urged founders to treat technology as the lever for Eastern Cape enterprise, not a luxury.
February 2024
Nonopa Tenza
Founder, Kevinot Farming
Tenza left blue-chip banking in 2021 to build Kevinot Farming. She shared how she scales agribusiness with a financier's discipline, and why the Eastern Cape's soil is its greatest untapped asset.
Two events from 2025 that pushed the chapter further, one across borders and one onto a global stage.
August 2025
For Women's Month, the East London chapter joined Startup Grind Maseru in Lesotho and Startup Grind Eldoret in Kenya for a first-of-its-kind cross-border collaboration. Three chapters, three countries, one conversation about what it takes to build as a woman in business. Held on 29 August 2025, it was a hybrid event, hosted in person at the Limani Gallery in East London and joined by a virtual audience.
September 2025
East London's most promising startups went head to head, each with one minute to pitch in front of a panel of expert judges, on 18 September 2025. The winner, Sivuyile Ngcanga, went on to pitch at the Startup Grind Summit in Silicon Valley in April 2026, to investors and an international audience. Vuyo Ncwaiba and Sibongile Booi also attended, as Director and Co-Director of the Startup Grind East London chapter.
A selection of the founders, business leaders and specialists who have spoken at our fireside chats.
Where to next
Capacity-Building & Training
Funding is where many promising businesses stall. The Funding Readiness Masterclass, a programme Mwanga designs and delivers with the Mr Price Foundation, closes the gap between needing funding and being genuinely ready for it. It is built for youth-owned businesses, founders aged 18 to 35, and runs as six live webinars backed by three hands-on workshops, delivered online and in person across the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. The programme is running through 2026.
Six webinars take founders through the full funding journey. Three workshops then turn that learning into the financial models and pitch decks that funders actually ask for.
Six live webinars
Introduction to Funding Readiness and Funders
What it means to be funding ready, and an honest look at what makes a business fundable.
Building a Strong Funding Case
Your business model up close: unit economics, pricing, and the numbers behind the pitch.
Unlocking Funding: Documentation and Compliance
What funders look at and why, and getting your documents and cashflow in order.
Startup Funding Strategy
Demystifying startup funding and finding your way around the funding landscape.
Pitching and Negotiation
Crafting a funding narrative that lands, and negotiating with confidence.
Retail and Market Access Readiness
What corporates look for in a supplier, and how to be ready to sell to them.
Three hands-on workshops
Workshop 1
Financial Model Clinic
Hands-on work on projections, use of funds, and articulating a clear funding ask.
Workshop 2
Pitch Deck Deep Dive
Deck refinement, narrative coaching, and structured peer review.
Workshop 3
Funding Simulation Panel
A mock funder review, with scoring and concrete next steps.
Where to next
Technology & Solutions
Mwanga does not only bring founders together and train them. It also builds. Clinic Connect is a working proof of concept: a patient data tool that lets a clinic capture and find patient records and manage the day's queue from one clear screen, designed to keep working where connectivity is poor. Mwanga built it in response to a brief from MTN for a clinic data-capturing solution and entered it into the competition. More than the brief itself, it shows something simple and important: Mwanga can take a real problem and turn it into working software you can open and use.
What it does
Patient records
Capture, store, and find a patient's details in one place, instead of on paper.
The day's queue
See who is waiting and who has been seen, so a busy clinic stays organised through the day.
Built for real conditions
Designed with low-connectivity clinics in mind, so the tool stays usable when the network does not.
We describe Clinic Connect accurately on purpose. It is a front-end proof of concept, not finished production software. The data resets when the page is refreshed, there is no live user sign-in yet, and the offline syncing is simulated rather than connected to a real server. What it does show is a complete, usable interface and a clear path to a production build. For a partner weighing up Mwanga, that honesty is the point: it proves real capability without overstating what has been built.
See it for yourself, the working demo is live.
View the live demoWhere to next