25-27 June 2025

What happens when you bring 110 of South Africa’s brightest young minds together for an intense, competition-style leadership sprint? Pure magic.

Belle and Co. was thrilled to co-design and facilitate an immersive, high-energy workshop for the university and diploma-level laureates of Students for a Better Future (SBF). Held over two and a half days at the UCT Graduate School of Business Conference Centre, six of our facilitators ran parallel sessions across two floors to guide these future leaders.

To prepare the laureates for the real world, we split them into teams of eight. Each team had to tackle one of three critical real-world challenge areas:

1. Health & Wellness: Exploring a future of telemedicine, biotechnology, and proactive, preventative care.

2. Sustainable Development & the Green Economy: Diving into eco-entrepreneurship, circular economy principles, and green tech.

3. Tech-driven Social Change & AI: Cultivating empathy and design thinking to lead digital advocacy and social innovation.

To replicate the pressure of a professional environment, teams were awarded points daily for their teamwork, problem statements, and final presentations. We tracked everything on a live leaderboard, culminating in final awards for the top team leaders and overall winners.

The students also received invaluable mentorship from industry heavyweights. Dr. Mzamo Masito (Canva Africa Leader and former Google Africa CMO) shared insights on visual storytelling, while Orion Herman (founder of Liquid Gold) explained how he uses nature-based bioconversion to turn waste into worth.

By empowering these exceptional young people with an entrepreneurial, caring mindset, we aren’t just teaching leadership – we are shaping the active problem solvers South Africa needs.

Facilitator, Belisa Rodrigues of Belle and Co. Source: SBF