Change the world

09/09/2019

The second annual China-South Africa Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum will take place at Nelson Mandela University Business School in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday, 10 September 2019. The Youth Forum is jointly organised by the Zhejiang Normal University from Jinhua, China and Nelson Mandela University. The first China-South Africa Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum was hosted by the Zhejiang Normal University in 2018.

The Youth Forum will be a platform for engagement between South African and Chinese young people, students, academics and professionals interested and/or involved in entrepreneurship and innovation. This year’s Youth Forum will focus on the ways the digital economy and E-commerce shape and impact global economic patterns, South-South cooperation, and youth innovation and entrepreneurship. Young entrepreneurs from South Africa will have an opportunity to engage and share their ideas, knowledge, practices, successes and challenges with the visitors from China in order to get a better understanding of how to go about and succeed in innovation and entrepreneurship.

On the agenda of the Youth Forum is the academic engagement, where academics and researchers from Nelson Mandela University and Zhejiang Normal University – together with students and young entrepreneurs in the audience – will discuss issues, opportunities and challenges related to entrepreneurship and innovation in the era of digital economy, cooperation in the Global South, and youth entrepreneurship and innovation in South Africa and China. The Youth Forum will also see and a number of panel discussions on various aspects of youth innovation and entrepreneurship. Young entrepreneurs, innovators and academics will have an opportunity to showcase their work. On the Forum’s agenda will also be a discussion about future engagement and collaboration between the young people from the two countries beyond the Youth Forum.

South African young entrepreneurs and innovators will have an opportunity to engage with the visitors from the Zhejiang Province, one of China’s main entrepreneurial hubs and a key contributor to the country’s economic development in the past few decades. It is important to note that the Eastern Cape Province has a partnership agreement with the Zhejiang Province going back to 2000, that focuses on economic links and engagement and cooperation in science, culture and education.

During the China-South Africa Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum, Nelson Mandela University and Zhejiang Normal University will sign an institutional partnership agreement for future research, teaching and learning engagement and collaboration.

The morning session of the Youth Forum will be attended by the Vice-Chancellor of Nelson Mandela University, the President of Zhejiang Normal University, Governor of the Zhejiang Province, and the Premier of the Eastern Cape Province, among others.

Contact information
Ms Zandile Mbabela
Media Manager
Tel: 0415042777
Zandile.Mbabela@mandela.ac.za