2007 ENABLIS Business Plan Competition

The Media Development & Diversity Agency (MDDA) is one of the funding partners of the ENABLIS Business Plan Competition, specifically of the media category. This prestigious competition is one of many other initiatives that the Agency supports in realizing its mandate in media development and creation of an enabling environment for media diversity in South Africa.

ENABLIS and MDDA worked closely to get information on the competition out to all MDDA-supported projects, companies and organizations, so that they too can participate. These projects were also encouraged to attend the business plan training workshops held in all provinces. This relationship between MDDA and ENABLIS provided an opportunity for media projects, i.e. small commercial and community media, to be part of an opportunity to improve their business planning skills and therefore grow their businesses. One of the main benefits for entering such a competition was that finalists and winners were exposed to new opportunities by meeting and engaging other investor networks, who may in future invest in their business ideas.

ENABLIS like the MDDA focuses on driving economic and social development of projects that have potential to flourish and become players in the broader market. In its broad mandate, the MDDA also plays a capacity building role of these media projects, by giving support in a form of scholarships to attend training workshops and courses offered by other training organisations and institutions.

This year, one of the new categories introduced by ENABLIS was the media category, which, the MDDA has agreed to contribute towards funding. The winners in this category are:

1. MEDIA IDEA
Noma Radebe of “The Media Mall” in Gauteng. The Media Mall aims to provide a one-stop shop and hub for equipment supply, rental facilities, office space for production and post production service providers.

2. MEDIA EXPANSION
Janine Nel of Nelida Publishing in Western Cape. Nelida Publishing is a publishing house that combines international partnerships with local content development. The company publishes niche business titles, children’s books and focuses on innovative, high quality products with a strong South African flavour.

The MDDA congratulates all the finalists and in particular the two winners and wishes them well in their business growth. We are hoping to have discussions with ENABLIS on the support for the entrants and our beneficiaries in general on the area of business planning and entrepeurship.

For more information on the competition and ENABLIS as an organisation, visit: www.enablis.org for MDDA related work in media development and diversity, visit: www.mdda.org.za

Issued by:
Lumko Mtimde, Chief Executive Officer
For further information please contact: Hariet Mhlanga at (011) 726 3336