The Kauffman Foundation brought together host organisations from nearly 60 nations to create the first ever Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) in March 2009 at its headquarters in Kansas City. The GEC is an entrepreneurial ecosystem connecting people across borders to share their ideas and transform innovation into reality—in turn growing economies and expanding human welfare.

For the very first time on African soil, thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and researchers descended for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress of 2017. Delegates from more than 170 countries gathered in Johannesburg to discuss, create awareness and support entrepreneurship.

The focus of this year's GEC was digital disruption—with panellists and keynote speakers emphasizing the importance of private and public sector partnerships, as well as the future of entrepreneurship in the face of constant technical and digital disruption in varying economies around the world.

Our Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa—who defined digital disruption as ‘the cornerstone of a modern economy'—opened the congress on Tuesday, 14 March 2017. He described Africa as the ‘cradle of entrepreneurship' as he welcomed the international delegates to the continent.

The Meniko executive team attended the event and gained a lot of insight not only on how to better improve the business, but also to adapt to changes in technology and innovation. Our Business Director, Mike Morris, also raised his concerns on how we, as start-up businesses, gain more traction in other countries in Africa than we do in South Africa. With conferences like these—created to boost small businesses and encourage entrepreneurship—we hope start-up businesses will have a footprint in South Africa first before taking it out to the rest of the world.
Awards were also held to honour innovative new ideas and disruptive technologies. Some of the winners were:

Special award
GEN South Africa was recognized as the GEC 2017 host country.

GEN Compass Award for Research Champions
Zoltan Acs—for his development of the ground-breaking and innovative Global Entrepreneurship Index.

Compass Award for Investor Champions
The African Business Angel Network—for their contributions to GEN's broader entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Policy Champions Award
Anders Hoffmann—for his evidence-based call for a new approach to SME policy involving a perspective on scale-ups.

Compass Award for Brand & Digital Champions.
South Africa

GEN Rookie of the Year
Peru

Click here to see the rest of the winners.