The Garden Route startup scene
The Garden Route is open for Business!
We are seeing this more and more, as the Garden Route evolves from a sleepy holiday destination into a serious player in the economy, manufacturing everything from aircraft to furniture to electronics, and everything in between.
Combining this with a serious skills base we have a highly credible business destination.
We are fortunate that the Garden Route has it’s own pool of talent, both in the technology sector as well as on the business and mentoring side.
The ICT sector is particularly active, with well over 100 ICT companies operating from George and surrounds alone. These includes a mix of software, hardware, training and consultancy, providing a nice mix any startup would need in order to succeed. Regular industry get togethers like geek breakfasts result in a well connected network of entrepreneurs.
A consortium of Garden Route based companies is ready to launch an IT technology hub in George which will create jobs and train up new skills.
George’s IT company owner Imel Rautenbach is currently drumming up support for the initiative at provincial and national level. The consortium aims to use the Western Cape Province’s business arm to market and develop in order to get launched nationally and internationally. IT technology and electronic centred businesses will be the engine that will drive this local initiative. “The idea behind pooling resources and skills is to keep all our software and hardware developmental work in the Garden Route. We already have around 30 businesses on our data base that have all the necessary skills and technology to form the nucleus. “