You may remember a few months ago, a request on here to help out a friend with his vertical wind turbine start up project. Although Brian reached his target of R10,000 with that appeal, you may have felt that the amounts he was asking for were a bit much for you to contribute.
Well, now he’s after R5,000,000 but the good news is that you can help him get there for a just the price of an SMS.
That’s because Brian has made it through – from literally thousands of hopefuls – to the final 32 in the SABC entrepreneurs reality series The Big Break Legacy. And the winner of that gets a nice R5 million cash injection to help them achieve their business dream, which in Brian’s case, is set out here:
Future Power Solutions (VWind SA) are the manufactures of The African Turbine and our goal is to offer the control of electrical power generation to individuals & businesses across the country.
The African Turbine is a small vertical turbine; it is silent, inexpensive and can be installed in a practical and easy manner. It is 100% locally produced with a modular design that is aesthetically pleasing, bird friendly and offers advertising opportunities.
We will focus primarily on the manufacture of the turbines and have partnered with a distribution company that is fully BBEEE accredited with strong ties into Govt and industry to take the units to market.
We have had more than 2 years of R&D and prototype testing; we are now the stage of having industrial designers’ setup factory requirements and building the market ready version for SABS approval. Initially we will make use of imported electrical motors with the goal of bringing this process in-house when we go into full production.
I like that local production idea. Supporting local industry and creating local skills and employment is hugely important.
Brian has been working tirelessly on this project for a long time now and, in my opinion, certainly deserves this “big break”. Even if he doesn’t win, the exposure for his product will surely be very helpful in getting him further down the path.
You can help him out by sending his name: BRIAN MAWDSLEY via SMS to 33614.
You can follow Brian’s progress via twitter: @brianmawdsley.