By Anita Nel, Chief Director Innovation and Commercialisation
Looking back at 2024, it has been a good year for the Innovation and Commercialisation Division.
The Innovus Technology Transfer Office and the SUNCOM office continue to receive regular benchmarking visits from other universities showing that we are the leaders in Southern Africa in this regard.? Innovus expanded their team and held a well-attended and successful technology transfer open week, attracting visitors from other African countries.? Staff members attended several global training courses and spoke at local and international conferences and events.? Our team supported SU researchers in bringing many new products and services to the market, making the world a better place.?
The Copyright, Trademarks and Short Courses division held a very successful inaugural Short Learning Programme Coordination Forum, attracting participants from across South Africa and managed to launch their new website amidst several challenges successfully.
The inaugural Agri Tech Connect event was equally successful and will also become an annual event, with the Health Tech Connect event to be launched in February 2025 to create a cluster for the health sector as well.
?The SU LaunchLab has engaged with 856 unique students thus far in 2024 (many students attended two to three events) and has held six faculty entrepreneurship boot camps.? SU's student entrepreneurs performed remarkably well and won three of the four regional categories of the Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) Intervarsity. They will be participating in the final national event in November 2024. Partnerships with the Allan Gray Foundation have proven exceptionally valuable, and the current sponsorship negotiations with a bank group look promising.? An international consortium included the SU LaunchLab in a funding application, which, if awarded successfully, will generate an income of around $225?000 per annum for three years for the LaunchLab. The 肆客足球 of Namibia is also interested in contracting SU LaunchLab to assist with its student entrepreneurship activities.???
The long-anticipated LaunchLab BIO, a commercial laboratory for early-stage biotechnology spinouts and external startups, is finally taking shape and will be yet another game changer for SU.
?The final stage of the Instant Startup (IS) online tool to provide comprehensive support to entrepreneurs, had a soft launch in October 2024 and received excellent feedback.? The tool has been made available to 20 new farmers and four supervisors of Agri Enterprise, a non-governmental organisation, and has also been licensed to Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences 肆客足球 (SMU).? Once thoroughly tested, the IS tool will be widely commercialised.? 肆客足球 of Namibia has also shown an interest in potentially licensing the tool from SU.
SunCom also had an exceptional year.? Highlights include opening the new SU Botanical Garden Restaurant and OK urban on the Tygerberg Campus. The latter created great excitement among the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences staff and students.?This also demonstrates the value of partnerships between the institution and industry.? The Transport Division is renewing its fleet of vehicles, and the Food and Compliance team implemented a highly affordable meal option for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) students who did not receive sufficient funding from the scheme for their meals during the entire academic year.? A very affordable meal option will also be implemented from 2025 to ensure that the meal funding of these students is not depleted during the year.? Our residential services had yet another excellent year and added significant value to our students' experience on our campus.
Our teams in Factory 209 have been recognised for excellence and have gained many happy customers in 2024.? The Matie Shops have grown and continue to impress with their quality products and service delivery.
This year's results underscore the SU Innovation and Commercialisation Division's commitment to innovation, risk management, and strategic investments, focusing on elevating SU's business and innovation portfolios and making SU a thriving university, relevant to society and an excellent student home.
I am incredibly proud to be a member of our innovation and commercialisation team and to contribute to making our university excellent. ?
