As part of its corporate social investment (CSI) strategy with a focus in driving innovation and skills development, capital equipment and logistics group Barloworld was one of this year’s sponsors of the Enactus World Cup – a global initiative that ignites entrepreneurial action in university students.

Held at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Gauteng last month, the 2015 event brought together some 3 500 students from 36 countries, who showcased their entrepreneurial endeavours and shared innovations that could potentially transform lives.

A group of students from the University of Zululand were part of the finalists, having won the national championships to qualify for the global finals.

The students presented two of the team’s eight projects at the World Cup. One of them being a project on a small-scale fish farmer where their aim was to help protect endangered species and improve the standard of living in the local community of Port Dunford, including job creation and increasing the farmer’s profitability.

The second project involved working with an organic vegetable cooperative comprised mostly of elderly men and women at eNgwelezane Township, south of Richard’s Bay. The key outcomes of the project included extending their range of products to a ready-made spicy vegetable pickle, which in turn reduces food waste.

However, students from the UK were the overall winners of the competition. They designed a Saneco Sanitary Towel, which trains women in rural African countries to use easy-to-manufacture sanitary towels.

Using their communities and educational background to invent and develop projects that will provide solutions for people, Barloworld’s involvement was driven by the company seeing an opportunity to invest in young people who are innovative and have the desire to help their communities through their knowledge and intellect.

“More than anything, what is of interest in being part of this initiative is to see the passion these students have in creating their projects and how they have considered the positive impact the project will have for the need they aim to address,” says Barloworld human resources, strategy and sustainability group executive Sibani Mngomezulu.

He adds that this was of importance to Barloworld as it shows the willingness of the students to have better futures and using education as a tool to achieve that.

“Education is a key aspect of our CSI strategy as we believe in innovation, which will further provide solutions for communities in and around our operations. Also, Enactus becomes important to us owing to the fact that we as a company are always looking for ways to better develop our products for improved efficiency for our clients. We therefore see Enactus as a platform where young people are given the opportunity to prove their capabilities through innovative thinking,” Mngomezulu points out.

Also, through such participation and innovation shown by students, Barloworld sees an opportunity to absorb students upon graduation to become interns at the company and provide insight on more innovative ways of developing the products that the company distributes.

“Research and development (R&D) is key in any company that looks towards the future and innovation becomes a key aspect in driving that. With the talent that these students have, there are opportunities for us to recruit some of them to be part of the company and harness their innovative ideas and approach to solving problems” he mentions.

Having a great interest in supporting educational projects nationally, Mngomezulu notes that the company is also involved with the LEAP Science and Maths Schools programme which aims to improve learner outcomes on a national scale. Also, the company is involved with Teach South Africa which, aims at recruiting and training graduates to become teachers at disadvantaged schools.