Nominations for this year’s Technology for Women in Business (TWIB) awards are now open, and women entrepreneurs from across the province are encouraged to embrace this opportunity to apply technology to support and grow their businesses.

The TWIB awards were introduced in 1998 and have already largely contributed towards mainstreaming women’s businesses within the broader South African economy. Prizes range from ICT business solutions, hard and software products, as well as entrepreneurial business support.

Geeta Singh, a 2008 TWIB award winner, urged women to enter the competition. “Don’t under-estimate the value of the technology and the difference it can make in your business,” she said.

DTI deputy director of gender and women empowerment Thabi Mtshali said South Africa was faced with an enormous task of creating five million jobs by 2015.

“One of the strategies for achieving this goal is enterprise development. Measures must to be put in place to ensure women play a critical role in creating jobs. Businesses owned by women must be made sustainable through the application of technology.”
The proper application of technology would enable women not only to grow their businesses and to increase production, but would create more jobs and enhance the quality of their products, she said.

TWIB nominations are invited in the following in three categories: micro/emerging companies and projects, small companies and medium companies. All nominations will be assessed by a national panel of experts, who will also do site visits to qualifying nominees.

To be eligible for the awards, the nominee’s enterprise must be:
• a profit-making business;
• owned by a South African citizen;
• a formally registered company that has been operating for two years or more; and
• 60% owned by women.

Nominations close on Wednesday, 15 August 2012. For more information, go to http://www.thedti.gov.za/economic_empowerment/docs/women_empowerment/TWIB2012.pdf. – Tanya Jonker