Parker Van Hart didn’t go to his friend and Grooveshark founder Josh Greenberg’s memorial service.
Instead, Van Hart, 48, served people in South Africa with curry and business smarts. When Van Hart heard about his friend’s death, he cooked the curry he used to make at the now-defunct Tasty Buddha, a local favorite of Greenberg’s.
“I made curry in his honor,” he said.
For the majority of the six-week study-abroad course, called Entrepreneurship & Empowerment in South Africa, Van Hart used what he learned as a UF entrepreneurship master’s student. He served as a consultant to South African entrepreneurs, along with other students from UF, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State University, University of Colorado and the University of the Western Cape.
They worked with underprivileged and underserved businesses from June 7 until this past Saturday. Students like Van Hart created marketing plans, developed systems for maintaining financial records and established an online presence.
“The students have to throw themselves into this,” said Michael Morris, a UF professor for the program.
The program isn’t just a study-abroad trip. Instead, he said the programs students set up can change an entrepreneur’s life.
“The impact we have fundamentally matters in terms of (the entrepreneurs’) lives,” Morris said.
The businesses are in townships, which are impoverished communities that skirt major South African cities.
Instead of leaving once they’re successful, Van Hart said the entrepreneurs stay in their townships, where they can continue contributing to their communities.
Without a successful business, he said the entrepreneurs wouldn’t have enough money to live.
“We’re working with people who literally don’t have food to eat, and they’re building a business,” Van Hart said.
The townships that students served were made of tiny tin-roof shacks that shook when someone moved.
In one, Van Hart said an entire family worked from dawn until dusk to send one child to school.
“This is not for the faint of heart,” Morris said.
As for the curry, “it was a big hit,” Van Hart said.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 7/27/15]
