Second pitching session for World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 projects

Social entrepreneur, Charles Maisel will host project owners, as they pitch to an audience of potential funders, mentors and collaborators under the banner of 'Live Design. Transform Life.'

Pitches

The programme team at Cape Town Design NPC (the implementation agency for WDC Cape Town 2014) has identified several projects that display cutting-edge design, innovation, social entrepreneurship and more, as part of the second pitching session.

1. SHIFT Stellenbosch is a platform showcasing the innovative capacity and potential of Stellenbosch through arts, education, environment, science and culture. SHIFT will culminate in a 24-hour event towards the end of 2014. #WDC660

2. The Montebello Labs uses unemployed mothers, an overlooked constituency in the city to incubate multi-field design production. The lab enables these women to identify opportunities for production, develop competencies across a range of fields (e.g. graphic and product design, 3D modelling and filmmaking), collaborate across fields and test business models in the real world. #WDC283

3. Creative Edge SA is an extra mural educational programme designed to expose Grade 10 to 12 learners to multiple creative career disciplines, through practical learning experiences. The aim is to overcome ignorance about these industries, promote new developing sectors and augment divergent thinking skills. #WDC353

4. Re-blocking Mtshini Wam showcases the co-production value in upgrading informal settlements. Once threatened through evictions, the community initiated a self-design process that re-organised shacks into "clusters" with safer and more dignified public spaces. Now the City can install basic services. #WDC238

5. Philippi Village involves a major brownfield site in the middle of Philippi, being redeveloped by committed role players in the private sector to provide a major socio/cultural and economic hub along the ethos of sustainable urban development in order to shift opportunity to the Cape Flats. #WDC310

6. Community led spatial design and reconfiguration of informal settlements both pre and post disaster leads to social cohesion, shelter upgrade and infrastructural improvements. It builds community, acknowledges the positive aspects of informality and helps bridge the urban divide. #WDC236

7. Shift Sustainability Caravan will see a caravan of retrofitted buses travel across SA, equipped with passionate people and design tool-kits to educate, exhibit and exchange practical skills and appropriate technologies that show unique promise and potential to address the country's social, environmental and economic challenges. #WDC442

8. Innovate the Cape inspires high school students to overcome their challenges by designing socially responsive, innovative, solutions. The initiative supports good ideas with R15,000 and expert mentors from UCT, Harvard and MIT. #WDC210

9. Mzansistore.com is an e-Marketplace. It enables small-scale handcraft producers to build sustainable businesses by designing an ecommerce platform that provides easy access to online selling as a sales channel, where they promote their own brand, sell and ship directly to buyers. #WDC516

10. Learning Innovation Design Lab will comprise a design studio, usability test lab, model classroom, think tank and showroom that will foster and showcase African innovation in education and how it connects to and forms part of the global conversation. #WDC251

11. City of Eden: Food Forest Network uses design based on forest ecology across a network of existing sites including Woodstock, Greenpoint, Khayelitsha and Oceanview to establish visually lush, high yielding, mostly self-sustaining food-ecosystems. #WDC601

12. Ceramics United South Africa Competition 2014 will hold a ceramics design competition among students, potters and artists to unlock the country's rich and dynamic ceramics history and share it with the world. #WDC345

13. Thermotrap products improve insulation in shacks. The product range includes a roof blanket, a wall cladding system and insulated floor tile as well as metallised foil ceiling insulation. #WDC663

14. Regeneration of the City and Soul addresses physically run down spaces and promotes effective management of waste by creating employment opportunities. #WDC368

"These pitching sessions aim to display projects and what they need in terms of funding, capacity and collaborations, whilst encouraging the public and business community to identify projects that they would like to support through both large investments and crowdfunding," says Maisel.

Cape Town Design NPC has already allocated R1-million to go directly to recognised projects and will award an additional R10,000 to the best project pitch at each session. The winning project from the first pitch was 100 Bicycles (#WDC421).

Thundafund collaboration

The company has collaborated with Thundafund to match the first R10,000 that WDC projects successfully raise through their Thundafund crowdfunding campaigns. See some of the WDC 2014 recognised projects listed on Thundafund.

The pitching session will be held at The Pavilion Conference Centre, Clocktower Centre, V&A Waterfront from 5pm to 9pm at a cost of R50 per ticket. Book tickets through Quicket.

For more information about pitching sessions and other WDC events, go to www.wdccapetown2014.com.