I did an interview on John Maytham's 567 Cape Talk on my open pitch sessions on a Friday afternoon and wow the response was brilliant. There were ideas like a plastic (PET) wine bottle ( i like it as a beer bottle as well), that when marketed every wine bottle can be a different shape making it very distinct on the shelf. Another guy wants to start a collecting business for 1c/2c/5c coins charging a commission to count and or weighing the coins in exchange for larger currencies and then taking a commission. Very similar to Mama's coin factory. He has done it and it works and he takes 15% which people seem happy with. A brilliant young women makes special boxes for dad's with babies, or a tooth fairy box for kids who lose teeth etc. Another idea was to develop a pedestrian test center together with a kids play area riding small cars etc. and where people and school kids do a pedestrian test as part of their driving test. The list goes on and on. The time for innovation and entrepreneurship in South Africa is defintely now. I would like to mention 2 ideas that have been tested and excite me tremendously.The First is ZLEEP, which is the brand for the arm alarm. Charles Tswane has made the prototype and has tested in the market. All within a few weeks. Wow! Love the brand, love the idea. The second is Vocal Exams which beleives that young students will do better if given an exam on paper as well as vocally. She has designed a system where kids get the english exam paper and a vocal element that includes headphones in their mother tongue of all the questions. The results were phenomenol! 65% did better with the vocal element added in. She has tested and it works. She has built her units and she is now needs to build her business plan. Wow! again! all in a few weeks. I could go on and on as there are so many great ideas and testing of new innovations. What excites me is that the current system really does work for innovation entrepreneurs. Teach people how to find new innovations + Open pitch sessions ( regular) + SUP FUND ( angel investors willing to invest in testing the viability of new ideas) + test results + larger Business Plans and investment capital.