National Innovation Competition Expo

The Innovation Fund of the Department of Science and Technology would like to invite UCT staff and students to the exhibition of the National Innovation Competition (NIC) for students, which will be held at Spier Wine Estate near Stellenbosch on Thursday, April 10 as part of the national NIC Awards function. The projects and/or models of the projects will be on display. The exhibition will be open from 14:00 to 19:00. Entry is free.

UCT's winners in the institutional phase will be competing against students representing 19 of South Africa's 22 Higher Education Institutions.

These are first-prize winners "Where is My Shuttle?" - a team of Information Systems (honours) students comprising Devin De Vries (Team Leader), Nadeem Isaacs, Mohamed Nabeel Nazeer, Tupochere-Jean Mbilizi and Christopher King, in the Commerce Faculty. Their Business Plan focused on the provision of commuter information, which will be of value especially in 2010.

Second-prize winner "IndieBio1" looked at the commercialisation of a bio-fertiliser derived from industrial waste. The Business plan was submitted by Bernelle Verster of the Department of Chemical Engineering Department in the Engineering and Built Environment Faculty.

The winners of the third prize are David Gwynne-Evans (Team Leader) and Ryan Blanchard of the Botany Department in the Science Faculty. Their Business Plan seeks to provide an on-line portal to document South Africa's floral biodiversity.

Students' technological inventions are required to be of commercial value as demonstrated by submission of a detailed business plan. During the institutional phase of the competition, students compete at university level, and the top three student business plans are then entered into the National Phase of the competition, where all the top three student business plans, generated during the institutional phase, compete against each other for the grand national prize, which includes a funded trip abroad to participate in an international innovation competition. The purpose of the competition is to promote entrepreneurship through the commercialisation of the innovative ideas of young entrepreneurs.

For more information on the competition and the Innovation Fund, visit http://www.nic07.co.za/ and http://www.innovationfund.ac.za.