SA Teen Entrepreneur Foundation: Official Launch

About Sabirul Islam

A UK Teen-Trepreneur, global motivational speaker and author and founder of the bestselling book: “The World at Your Feet” and ‘Teen-Trepreneur.”

With a vision to want to achieve success as a young entrepreneur, Sabirul Islam, an ordinary East London teenager who grew up witnessing crime and violence within his community, made the jump to setting up a web design business at the age of 14. Having run the web design company for a period of 2 years and generating a healthy income whilst still in school, Sabirul felt it was best to leave web designing as it became “very common.”

Sabirul quickly discovered the benefits of risk-taking at a young age and, with a passion for networking and big organisational support. Sabirul took a step forward to become a junior trader at the age of 16, having been given the opportunity by Merrill Lynch to learn how to trade whilst in New York.

With a wealth of knowledge and experience as a young entrepreneur and investor, Sabirul had the vision and desire to inspire young people across the nation which led him to write his first book called “The World at Your Feet” aged just 17. The launch of his first book presented the opportunity for Sabirul to become a motivational speaker, sharing his message at 379 events in nine months and selling over 42,500 copies of his book.

Sabirul not only wants to inspire young people, but to educate them about the world of entrepreneurship and taking risks. This motivated him at the age of 18, to invest £20,000 of his own money into developing and launching his own business board game called “Teen-Trepreneur.” The game itself has sold in 14 countries worldwide and is now used as part of the BTEC Business Qualification in over 450 schools across the UK. Launched alongside the board game was Sabirul’s second book, “The World at Your Feet: Three strikes to a Successful Entrepreneurial Life”.

Sabirul set up his second business named after his book ‘The World at Your Feet’ which consists of many small enterprises and programmes that deliver inspiration, empowerment and entrepreneurial initiatives. This includes ‘Teen-Speakers,’ bringing together the ‘World Best’ young influential speakers aged 16-25, all on to a single platform to inspire & empower a global audience.

His venture also consists of Teen-Publishers, a platform for young writers aged 5-25 a platform to get their books professionally published & selling via online retail channels. Sabirul also launched the Teen-Trepreneur Success kit, a training program to help nurture youth to become successful entrepreneurs.

Now aged 20, Sabirul’s vision to inspire young people has expanded to a global scale having reached out to millions of people across the UK, Europe, USA, Nigeria, South Africa, Japan & the Maldives. Enabling Sabirul to launch the ‘Inspire1Million,’ with a vision inspire, engage and transform the lives of 1 million people in 20 countries within 12 months.

Sabirul Islam, an ordinary East London Youth who is still only 20, is rapidly developing an empire that inspires, educates and provides the opportunity for an ordinary individual to become an “extraordinary entrepreneur.”

About Dan Plato

Dan Plato

Dan Plato, the Minister for Community Safety in the Western Cape and the former Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town, has been involved in political activities since high school, particularly in Cape Town’s northern suburbs. As a community organiser, he played a major role in rallying people against the apartheid regime. In the mid-1980s, he worked in the Emergency Services Unit of the former Bellville Municipality (Tygerberg Administration), and he became the Cape Town Chairperson of the South African National Tuberculosis Association in the mid-1990s.

In 1996, Plato became a councillor and full-time politician. He served two terms as Chairperson of the City of Cape Town’s Economic Development, Tourism and Property Management Portfolio Committee and, from 2006 to 2009, held the Housing Portfolio in the Mayoral Committee. During this period, as Deputy Chairperson of the DA Metro Region and DA Caucus in the City of Cape Town, he also served as Acting Executive Mayor at various intervals. Shortly before being elected Executive Mayor in May 2009, Plato had taken over as the Mayoral Committee Member responsible for Service Delivery and Economic Development.

As a dedicated ward councillor serving Belhar, Uitsig and Ravenmead, Plato was and continues to be committed to social upliftment and poverty alleviation. During his term as mayor, he introduced many job creation projects and made this one of the focus points of his mayoral agenda.

In addition to his political work, Plato has served on the boards of a wide variety of organisations, including the Cape Film Commission, Cape Tourism, the University of the Western Cape and the Business Opportunities Network, and has been a member of various community-based trusts and has done campaign work for HIV/AIDS, women’s rights and youth development.

About Rael Levitt

Rael Levitt

Rael displayed early entrepreneurial ambitions during his school and student years. He sold his first property while still in matric and was selling property to varsity staff while completing his law degree at the University of Cape Town.

Rael has today become an innovator, entrepreneur and household name in the asset sales and services industry. He founded his first auction company at the age of 20 and was the founder of Auction Alliance, Valuation Alliance and Asset Alliance.

With his infectious personality, astute leadership and bold strategic moves, Rael has developed the Auction Alliance into Southern Africa’s leading asset sales and services company.

A veteran and pioneer of the auctioneering business at age 40, Rael’s knowledge and industry acumen are unequalled in the local market. He has personally sold billions of Rands of almost every asset type and his background in sales and marketing combined with extensive operational and general management experience make him a highly respected and popular leader of the ever-growing Auction Alliance brand.

The Gugulethu Tenors

They have been described as “South Africa’s Il Divo”, “Pavarotti’s Children” and “the Diamond of the Township” – the Gugulethu Tenors enchant the concert halls of South Africa with their collective song. While their peers enjoy Kwaito, Hip Hop and Rap, the Gugulethu Tenors pursue their inherent love of Opera, a genre which is not traditionally associated with the township. By incorporating contemporary and subtle ethnic elements in their music, they have made the genre their own, capturing the hearts of audiences across South Africa with their raw talent.
Their repertoire includes operatic favourites such as O Sole Mio, Nessun Dorma and Nella Fantasia, as well as popular songs like The Prayer, Miriam Makeba’s Pata Pata and even Gé Korsten’s Liefling. Their original compositions like O Afrika! and Nyamezela have audiences on their feet at every performance.
The quartet consists of Mpendulo Yawa, Siyabulela Gqola, Xolani November and Loyiso Dlova. Previously known as Fez Tenors / Three Young Tenors, the group was formed in 1999. These self-taught vocalists were selected from scores of hopeful entries at Fezeka High School in Gugulethu to enter a music competition called the Prompt Voice Search. They won first place for the best group category and have never looked back. They went on to win 1st prize at the Nyanga Junction Golden Voice Competition, 1st at the prize- Tygervalley Star Search competition, 2nd prize at the Westgate Mall Voice Search competition and 1st prize at the Langa Gospel competition.