SAB Foundation announces finalists for 2025 Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards
The SAB Foundation has announced the 24 finalists of its annual Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards, a flagship programme that backs entrepreneurs developing practical, scalable solutions to improve the lives of women, youth, people in rural communities, and persons with disabilities. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Johannesburg on 14 October 2025.
As the SAB Foundation celebrates 15 years of impact in 2025, the Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards continue to uncover bold solutions to South Africa’s most urgent challenges. Launched in 2011, the awards have grown into one of the country’s leading platforms for social innovators, supporting entrepreneurs to scale their ideas into sustainable businesses. This year also coincides with SAB’s 130th anniversary, underlining a shared history of innovation and progress.
Since inception, the awards have invested more than R78 million into 186 social enterprises, resulting in significant growth in both turnover and job creation among participating businesses.
“The finalists reflect the strength of South African innovation,” says Itumeleng Dhlamini, Head of Programmes at the SAB Foundation. “From accessible healthcare solutions and inclusive media platforms to sustainable farming practices and recycling technologies, these entrepreneurs are tackling complex challenges while creating opportunities for vulnerable communities, including people with disabilities.”
Finalists don’t only receive grant funding. They also gain access to tailored mentorship, training, and networks of funders and industry experts. This support helps them refine their solutions, scale sustainably, and increase their impact across South Africa.
This year’s group includes innovations in healthcare, education, agriculture, connectivity and digital access, demonstrating the breadth of local ingenuity.
“These awards are the start of a journey we walk together with each entrepreneur,” adds Dhlamini. “Our role is to stand beside them as they build sustainable businesses that create jobs and transform communities. We look forward to celebrating their progress and supporting them as they grow.”
The complete list of finalists is below:
DISABILITY EMPOWERMENT AWARDS FINALISTS
These finalists are creating innovations developed by, or designed for, persons with disabilities to tackle exclusion and create opportunities.
Digital Assistive Technology Hub (Gauteng): Med-Ezequiel is South Africa’s first digital hub for the blind, improving access to assistive technologies and training for people with visual impairments. By combining e-commerce with real-time support and skills training, it empowers users to integrate tools like braille devices and accessible smartphones into daily life, fostering independence and inclusion.
Disability Oriented Radio Station (Gauteng): Skills Village Radio is an online platform amplifying the voices of persons with disabilities while fostering inclusion and awareness. Through interviews, educational programmes, and advocacy content, it challenges stereotypes, builds understanding between communities, and creates a supportive digital space that drives social change.
Inspyre (Western Cape): This innovation combines a diagnostic and treatment device with a digital platform to make sleep apnoea care accessible from home. By enabling screening, testing, titration, and treatment outside of hospitals, it removes major barriers for patients, especially those with disabilities, while allowing clinicians to remotely monitor and adjust care.
Monate Sensory Flavours (Gauteng): The Monate Sensory Flavours Training, developed by Blind SA, equips blind and partially sighted individuals with advanced sensory evaluation skills for the flavour and fragrance industry. By combining specialised tasting techniques, job readiness, and digital literacy, the programme creates meaningful employment opportunities while challenging perceptions of disability.
OAPD Economic Empowerment Project (Western Cape): The Overstrand Association for Persons with Disabilities empowers people with disabilities through innovative income-generating projects, including high-quality abalone shell crafts and greenhouse farming of herbs and vegetables. By creating jobs, building skills, and supporting therapeutic engagement, the programme reduces poverty while fostering inclusion and sustainable community development.
Rural Area Power Wheelchair (Gauteng): The Dassie X Power Wheelchair is a South African–designed, all-terrain mobility solution built for rural life. With dual 350-watt motors, rugged wheels, and the ability to climb 15° inclines, it restores independence to people with disabilities while remaining compact and foldable for easy transport.
White Cane (Gauteng): Locally manufactured white canes, available in folding and rigid designs, provide blind and partially sighted individuals with safe, reliable mobility. Lightweight, ergonomic, and fitted with reflective strips for visibility, they are more than assistive devices—they are tools of independence, confidence, and dignity
SOCIAL INNOVATION AWARDS FINALISTS
These finalists are tackling socio-economic and environmental challenges with unique, scalable, and sustainable solutions.
AgriGuru Africa (Gauteng): A comprehensive agri-tech platform offering real-time, AI-powered insights tailored to local farming conditions. It integrates IoT sensors, weather data, and predictive analytics to help farmers make informed decisions. With multilingual support and a mobile-first design, it ensures accessibility and engagement for rural communities
Community Digital Empowerment (Gauteng): Community Digital Empowerment focuses on bridging the digital divide by providing access to technology, training, and resources for rural populations. It promotes digital literacy, entrepreneurship, and social inclusion through participatory approaches and localised solutions.
Jobox (Western Cape): Jobox is an AI-enabled graduate workforce platform that bridges the gap between higher education and the job market. By tracking employment data and hiring trends, it provides insights that improve curricula, guide employers, and support policymakers ensuring graduates not only find jobs but build meaningful, lasting careers.
Kioni Women Microenterprises (Limpopo): Kioni is a social enterprise empowering rural South African women through high-end beadwork. Using a hub-and-spoke production model, it provides training, market access, and financial inclusion while connecting artisans to premium local and international markets. By blending traditional craftsmanship with contemporary design, Kioni creates sustainable livelihoods and preserves cultural heritage.
MagnaSlide and MagnaFlow (Gauteng): Drizzle Health has developed MagnaSlide and MagnaFlow, polymer-based tools that improve diagnostic accuracy by concentrating bacteria from samples. MagnaSlide makes TB detection faster and more reliable, while MagnaFlow enhances food and water safety testing for pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella, reducing errors and simplifying the process.
Nappertoir Eco Cement (North West): Nappertoir Eco Cement is a sustainable alternative to traditional cement that eliminates energy-intensive clinker, cutting carbon emissions while repurposing industrial and agricultural waste. Using a proprietary activation process with built-in carbon capture, it delivers high strength and durability, offering the construction industry a greener, cost-competitive solution.
New Tonometer Device and Platform (Gauteng): A next-generation handheld tonometer that provides accurate, affordable intraocular pressure testing for glaucoma screening. Designed to be portable and cost-effective, it eliminates disposable parts, lowering long-term costs and improving accessibility in both urban and rural healthcare settings.
NuroZA (Western Cape): NuroZA uses wearable brain-computer interface technology to track students’ attention and cognitive workload, providing real-time insights into how they learn. By using AI to personalise education, it helps teachers, parents, and learners identify challenges faster and adapt lessons to unlock each student’s potential.
Qwili (Western Cape): Qwili is a smartphone app that enables township and rural entrepreneurs, many of them women, to run their own businesses selling airtime, electricity, bus tickets, financial services, and even groceries. With low start-up costs and no need for a physical shop, Qwili creates income opportunities while bringing essential goods and services closer to communities.
Rhiza Babuyile Crop Hub (Gauteng): The Rhiza Babuyile Crop Hub empowers local black farmers in Diepsloot through a Smart Container Crop Shop that provides processing, packaging, and market access. By improving income opportunities, reducing food waste, and supporting food security, the hub strengthens livelihoods while supplying affordable, nutritious produce to the community.
Sum1 Investments (Western Cape): Sum1 Investments helps stokvels grow their savings by investing in township and rural small businesses. Through an accessible asset-financing model, it provides entrepreneurs with the capital they need to scale while giving stokvel members meaningful returns, driving community growth and job creation.
Surgical Assistant (Western Cape): The Surgical Assistant (TSA) is South Africa’s first digital platform that connects surgeons with vetted surgical assistants in real time. The platform improves operating room efficiency while creating employment opportunities for doctors, and includes a CPD-accredited Training Academy to upskill medical professionals.
Tap-Fi (Gauteng): Tap-fi is a shared Wi-Fi service providing affordable, uncapped internet to underserved communities for just R150 per month. With vouchers that allow multiple household members to connect, the service bridges the digital divide by enabling access to education, jobs, healthcare, and online opportunities in townships and rural areas.
The Marking App (Gauteng): The Marking App is an education platform that automatically marks handwritten test papers in under 30 seconds, providing teacher-like feedback directly on the student’s work. By saving teachers up to 80% of marking time and offering an integrated learning management system, it streamlines assessments and enhances teaching efficiency.
The Sparks Impact Fellowship (Western Cape): The Sparks Impact Fellowship bridges the gap between graduates and the social impact sector by placing young professionals in 11-month roles with social enterprises, investors, and support organisations. Alongside work experience, fellows receive structured training, mentorship, and a living wage, creating a pipeline of skilled changemakers for the African impact economy.
Utlwa Collective (Gauteng): This audio production company is preserving African languages and accents by recording stories in authentic voices and using them to train AI models. By combining high-quality audio storytelling with future-focused technology, it promotes mother-tongue education, destigmatizes local accents, and ensures African voices are represented in the digital age.
Webmax (Western Cape): WebMax is a student-led social enterprise equipping youth with in-demand digital skills like AI, coding, and data analytics while connecting them to SMEs needing affordable digital services. This dual model tackles youth unemployment and accelerates SME digital transformation, creating sustainable pathways to jobs, freelancing, and entrepreneurship.