mLab Southern Africa (SA), the region’s new incubator for entrepreneurs and innovators with a focus on mobile technology, is pleased to announce that application for membership has opened. Applications for mobile developers and entrepreneurs with a startup business, organisation or mobile idea to become members are now open.
mLab SA is a mobile applications laboratory, an innovative way to foster enterprise creation, employment and competitiveness by providing open spaces where entrepreneurs and programmers can find training, mentoring, technical expertise and access to finance. The mLab SA is hosted by a consortium of four organisations: CSIR Meraka Institute, The Innovation Hub, InnovationLab and Ungana-Afrika.
The mLab SA offers three types of membership:
Community, which is free and which anyone can join, and Silver and Gold, for which interviews are necessary.
Silver and Gold members pay a fee to access the core services of the mLab SA at the facility in The Innovation Hub, and receive more structured support from the mLab SA team and it’s partners. Support services will either be delivered directly by the mLab SA, or through external providers to which members will be pointed, e.g. the Bandwidth Barn’s business mentoring program.
The mLab SA, and the recently opened mLab East Africa, in Nairobi, are the first of a number of mLabs to be launched around the world as part of the Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy programme, supported by infoDev (World Bank), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Finland and Nokia.
Applications can be submitted via the mLab SA website, www.mlab.co.za/apply, where further information regarding membership can also be found.