Ever since he was eight years old, alumnus, Joshua Ngoma has been an entrepreneur. He says that he was always looking for things to sell or working on sealing deals. Today he is a qualified mining engineer and his passion for entrepreneurship has not diminished.

Ngoma entered the Master’s of Engineering in Project Management programme at the University of Pretoria (UP) in 1999 and graduated in 2011. ‘We were really a pioneering group that focussed on bringing together engineering and business management,’ he says.

He held engineering positions with large mines throughout his career but became involved in the world of business management when in 2007 he became one of four owners of Tranter Holdings, a BEE gold mining company. He left the company in 2012.
 

In 2014 he founded EARN (Enterprising Africa Regional Network). The company’s focus, Ngoma explains, is on providing South African companies with a range of services that are essential to growing a business, such as legal services and marketing. Since they do not have to attend to these non-core functions, companies utilising EARN’s services are able to concentrate on their core business.

Ngoma says it is about creating a more enabling environment for businesses to flourish. ‘My passion for entrepreneurship comes from my belief that we cannot wait around for government to provide for our every need – it is up to us to learn to earn. This is why my company is called EARN,’ he says.

Ngoma serves on UP’s Engineering Advisory Council and is a member of SAIMM (South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy) and ECSA (Engineering Council of South Africa). His association with these organisations allows him to work towards closing gaps in the mining engineering industry. He has advice for newcomers to the field: ‘As a young engineer you need to be prepared to get your hands dirty in order to build a strong foundation for yourself.’

Ngoma, a Zambian by birth, now lives on a small-holding outside Centurion. It is an agricultural project he believes can be used as a demonstration and educational model for how to maximise agricultural resources. When he is not on the farm or working to build his company, Joshua and his wife enjoy travelling and discovering new places and cultures, and visiting their two grown children who are students in Australia.