Entrepreneurship remains one of higher education's clearest levers for tackling youth unemployment and building graduates who create jobs rather than simply search for them.
“Universities must do more than prepare students for the future of work; they must empower them to create it. Entrepreneurship is where knowledge meets courage, and ideas become tangible engines of societal change. The true measure of innovation is not the brilliance of an idea, but its capacity to solve real-world challenges and improve lives. Student enterprise today is societal impact tomorrow. Opportunity grows where innovation meets purpose,” remarked Prof Vasu Reddy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies.
Testing ideas where it is safe to fail
For Chipo Matambo, Manager of the UFS Business Incubator and the opening speaker of the day, the market had been years in the making. "You may have a great business plan, you may have a great business idea, but if it does not satisfy a customer need, then that idea is unlikely to succeed," she said. The incubator handled marketing and logistics so that vendors could focus purely on selling. "Let's take theory to practice, let's take it out of the classroom to the market," she said.
Infrastructure, not theory
Following the opening and an institutional address,
Dr Edwell Gumbo, Director of the
Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) programme – a national initiative of Universities South Africa representing all 26 public universities – took the floor. Now in its eighth year, EDHE's mandate, he told students, is to reposition every public university as genuinely entrepreneurial, "not as a peripheral add-on, but as a core institutional priority". He pointed to support already available to them: their own campus's Student Entrepreneurship Coordinator, the Absa Entrepreneurship InnoVarsity, the Absa Studentpreneurs Indaba, the Mr Price Foundation x EDHE Waste Innovation Challenge, and the Student Women Economic Empowerment Programme (SWEEP), which the UFS runs on both its Qwaqwa and Bloemfontein Campuses.
He was equally direct about what a competition win is not. "Winning a pitch competition is a milestone. It is not a business," he said. "Prize money starts a business. It does not sustain one. What sustains a business is a paying customer who returns."
Funding is the thorn in every founder's side
Later, representatives from Absa and the Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency (SEDFA) joined a conversation on funding, facilitated by Matambo. Funding, she said, remains ‘the thorn’ for most student entrepreneurs, many of whom are unaware that a viable option exists. SEDFA's team walked students through its youth fund – open until the end of September – which combines a fully-granted stream with a blended grant-and-loan option.
Real problems, real pitches
The day's centrepiece was an impromptu pitching competition judged by Dr Ekaete and Dr Crespen Ndlovu. Dr Ndlovu’s doctoral research in the UFS Centre for Development Support, which includes a policy brief on how social entrepreneurship builds graduate capability, explores how social entrepreneurship – the application of entrepreneurial action to address social, economic, or environmental problems – bridges the gap between classroom theory and real-world impact.
What struck him most, Dr Ndlovu said, was how prepared students were despite the format's lack of structure. "Most of them were addressing real issues that students face, among them food, clothing, and access to sanitary products," he said, noting that ventures were also assessed on how clearly they connected to the Sustainable Development Goals. "If events like this continue, they will allow students to grow and make a meaningful impact within university spaces," he said.
For Prof Vasu Reddy “Every successful entrepreneur begins with a simple question: how can I create value for others? The answer shapes industries, communities, and futures. The journey from classroom insight to marketplace impact is where transformative learning truly comes alive. Student entrepreneurship is not an extracurricular activity; it is a strategic pathway to inclusive growth, sustainable development, and economic resilience.”
An annual fixture in the making
The afternoon closed with performances from the Kovsie Arts and Culture Office, a conversation on digital skills and AI with Dr Riaan Bezuidenhout, and a vote of thanks from the Business Incubator team. Organised with support from Enactus, the Hult Prize, SWEEP, and the Student Entrepreneurship Committee, the market day formed part of the national Student Entrepreneurship Week. The incubator hopes to establish it as an annual fixture.
For a university committed to responsible societal futures, the market day was a small but concrete step – proof that some of the most useful learning happens not in a lecture hall, but at a stall, in front of a customer deciding whether to buy.