Microsoft launches Head Start program for Startups in South Africa

Head Start initiative to provide support for startups in South Africa

Microsoft introduced a new initiative designed to help startups at this years Global Entrepreneurship Week in South Africa. During the tech day session it announced Head Start, an initiative to provide the package it offers its partners to Startups in South Africa.

Making the announcement and speaking on Building an IP economy in South Africa was Lionel Moyal, Director Commercial Partners Ecosystem. It is an exciting day to take what Microsoft does with partners in south Africa and extend it to what startups actually need. We get how critical entrepreneurship is especially in the South African context where job creation is vital if we are to improve our economy.

We will support you
to find your first customers
and get your products to market
as quickly as possible.

He shared that Head Start is about opening doors. Opening the Technology, Business and Compliance, Regulation and legal door to startups. It is a support program, through skills development, access to coaches and mentors. (As a startup you can be alone, you don’t know where to go, you need advise, to talk to someone who understands AI, Services, Manufacturing, etc.)

Lionel shared that Head Start isn’t about Microsoft giving you funding nor taking equity in your startups. It’s your IP(intellectual property), we just want you to leverage our platform and use the ecosystem we make available. We will support you to find your first customers and get your products to market as quickly as possible. We know that is one of the hardest thing to do from a startup perspective.

More on what Lionel Moyal shared about Microsoft Head Start

We are in a transformative time where Digital technology is taking over. Everything is becoming digitized. There isn’t a single industry which hasn’t had an impact with digital technology. All the different tools exist today on demand.

Microsoft today is a completely new organization. We are a platform company with a mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. It’s about we make the technologies that other people use to make solutions. We enable but our partners create the solutions that solve the worlds challenges.

As a startup time isn’t your friend.

Our partner model is fundamentally founded on being proactive. We enable success and require our partners to deliver transformative solutions. We proactively work with you to deliver great solutions using out platform.

As a startup time isn’t your friend. Your success is deepened on your partnerships and how well you can leverage the ecosystem. We want to create an ecosystem of creators not consumers. It is about the startups and partners who will make something about it. If you are a startup in tech, there are no borders in this digital economy, your market is the world.

The head start initiative will launch with local Microsoft partners tarsus, BUI, First Distribution, Britehouse, Rectron, Senetic, CloudLogic, Tangent Solutions and Liquid Telecom volunteering to help startups take products to market at scale.

As a startup partner you’ ll get ;