UCT Technologies at Innovation Bridge

RCIPS participated in the DST’s first ever Innovation Bridge event at the CSIR Conference Centre in Pretoria.  The event was designed to showcase technologies emerging from universities across South Africa, seeking commercial partners.  Innovation Bridge was well-attended and many useful leads were obtained and a great deal of interest was shown in the three UCT technologies profiled – HyCat hydrogen fuel cells, Elemental CFD software and Lumkani fire detector. 

Lumkani resulted in two wins for UCT – the best pitch given by Paul Mesarcik and the innovation most likely to have impact on inclusive development.

The event was held over two days (2,3 Feb) and included a technology expo, pitching sessions and parallel sessions on a variety of topics related to technology commercialisation and entrepreneurship.  Piet Barnard, Director: RCIPS, participated in the panel discussing Exchange Control regulations.  The panel included representatives from SA Reserve Bank, IP law firms and Standard Bank as an authorised agent of SARB.  From a UCT perspective the proposal for ‘categories’ of agreements to be pre-approved by SARB and merely reported on annually could certainly smooth our research contracts process and timelines.