By Emihle Majikija, SDSN Youth South Africa Projects Officer
On 15 October 2025, SDSN Youth South Africa celebrated the high-point of our inaugural Innovation Challenge in Pretoria, South Africa, a flagship initiative of the youth network aimed at equipping young people to serve as catalysts of the SDGs through entrepreneurship. On this day the Network hosted the Final Pitch Day of the first edition of the Innovation Challenge, which saw students from different universities put their best pitch forward to earn their place in the top three and their share of prizes valued at over R50 000. The winning teams pitched ideas across the spectrum of the SDGs – from decent work and economic growth, to quality education and responsible consumption and production. The event was a showcase and celebration of the creativity and versatility of South Africa’s youth – keen problem solvers with remarkable potential for sustainable business success.
When planning this initiative, our vision for the Innovation Challenge is to see youth entrepreneurial action combined with human-centred design and systems thinking to solve global sustainability issues through scalable and sustainable local enterprises. We seek to achieve this by:
When we launched SDSN Youth South Africa in April 2025, we simultaneously opened the call for applications – universities across the country to submit their creative and innovative ideas for the inaugural Innovation Challenge. The promise: a structured program offering mentorship and incubation support, refining their ideas and preparing them for the Final Pitch Day where shortlisted teams would present for spots in the top three, and cash prizes to contribute to their fledgling businesses.
The period between June and October was a flurry of activity. Once the shortlisting was completed, our work as clearly set out for us. We had sifted through scores of incredible innovations, marvelled by the creativity, talent and dedication to sustainable development that each team portrayed. Our internal panel of judges ranked the submissions that we had received, grading them on criteria such as innovation and creativity, originality, feasibility and technical rigour and research.
With that mammoth task out of the way, our work was clearly cut out for us. We had arrived at the final 10 teams.
In the lead up to the Final Pitch Day, we convened a structured program of masterclasses for the shortlisted teams to refine both, their ideas, and their presentation of these ideas. The finalists participated in a series of masterclasses on topics such as design thinking, sustainable business models, social impact and the SDGs, smart money management for the SDGs as well as pitching and storytelling.
The program featured key addresses from the Vice Chancellor of the University of Pretoria and Chair of SDSN South Africa, Prof. Francis Petersen; CEO of the National Youth Development Agency, Mr. Ndumiso Kubheka; and the Global Coordinator of SDSN Youth, Ms. Raquel Armendariz Sucunza.
The competition was riveting, with each Innovator delivering a compelling pitch. The full complement of presentations showed that young people represent the future of a more socially just, economically prosperous and sustainable global community. Utlimately, we had to have a top three and they emerged as follows:
1st place: Eco Polish - Reducing plastic pollution and turning plastic waste into value in the circular economy by replacing traditional surface polish products with a sustainable, multipurpose innovation that is manufactured using plastic waste.
2nd place: Owa Jewellers: Jewellery with a social purpose: aesthetic adornments meets mental healthcare where jewellery is connected to an app that enable caregivers to track whereabouts of persons in need of care such as dementia patients.
3rd place: Rhythm Syndicates: Using musical performance, storytelling and digital media to revitalise and preserve cultural identity amongst indigenous youth in urban and diverse contexts.
The ultimate winners in an initiative like the Innovation Challenge are not only the top three. It is the communities whose lives will change with every solution implemented and scaled – jobs created, cultures preserved, and peace of mind for a caregiver who no longer has to worry about the whereabouts of their loved one.
In the gap between ideation and the final execution of the inaugural Innovation Challenge were hours of planning, strategizing, thinking and re-thinking. It is in these hours that we which fostered a spirit of collaboration and excellence in our small team. With it, the joys of light-hearted banter and a shared vision which carried us through the months of sustained hard work, and sustained our belief that a humble team of three could bring to life what has now been described as “a national development event hosted by young people”. In the 6 months between launch and the Final Pitch, we have grown as a team and hosted, with success, the first edition of the Innovation Challenge. We look forward to the second edition in 2026!
