2023 Inventors Breakfast event celebrates postgraduate innovation
On 27 October 2023, Research Contracts and Innovation (RC&I) held its second annual Inventors Breakfast event at the university's Graduate School of Business. The event brought together postgraduate students, inventors, researchers and industry stakeholders to celebrate with RC&I on the successes of the previous year and the advancements made by inventors. The event, programme directed by Dr Andrew Bailey, Senior Manager: Innovation, kicked off with an opening address by Professor Sue Harrison, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation. The DVC spoke about the importance of postgraduate innovation.
“Postgraduate students are the lifeblood of innovation within universities and the theme of RC&I’s publication Innovation at UCT 2023 is, “postgraduate innovation" - a special focus on this inventor demographic, with entrepreneurship an important component of Vision 2030.”
She believes that postgraduate students are driven by a passion for research and discovery. “The importance of postgraduate students goes beyond the confines of the classroom and laboratory. They are a driving force behind the formation of university spin-off companies. These companies take the innovations and breakthroughs developed within the university and transform them into real-world solutions, products, and services. Spin-off companies also employ other graduates, examples are SAT and Cape Bio Pharms who both employ over 50 staff with degrees.”
Prof Harrison went on to thank the Department of Science and Innovation’s National Intellectual Property Management Office (NIPMO) for their support. “We appreciate the support that we receive from NIPMO to support capacity building and operations at RC&I as well as various technology transfer activities and events.”
“2023 marks the tenth year that we have received this funding from NIPMO. It greatly extends what RC&I is able to achieve and we are pleased to have been notified that our fifth project funded by the NIPMO OTT Support Fund has been approved and contracting is underway. This will see over R11m coming into UCT over the next three years”, she said.
Practice patience
The keynote address by Bambili Group CEO and Director of UCT spin-off company HyPlat, Ms Zanele Mavuso Mbatha followed. She took the guests on a journey of encouragement, emphasising the importance of patience in business and innovation. “The innovation journey is not for the faint hearted. One needs to practice patience. There will be times when you want to quit, but remember why you started”, she said. She went on to share nuggets from her own journey.
2022 highlights
Mr Piet Barnard, Director RC&I, presented RC&I’s highlights with a strong focus on the impact of work done by the RC&I team in facilitating commercialisation. “In 2022, RC&I filed 46 new patents and saw 35 patents being granted. This is an increase from 2021.”
In his address he shared the “recipe for successful commercialisation.” Piet said, “a number of factors play a critical role in the success of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs). In order for commercialisation to take place successfully, one needs these ingredients:
- Research income
- Good researchers and postgraduate students
- Post R&D funding
- Staff to facilitate
- Good support and relationships
NIPMO has continuously supported the work we do and we are thankful for that relationship.”
Innovation at UCT
The annual publication Innovation at UCT was also launched at the event. Themed postgraduate innovation,the publication places much focus on UCT postgraduate students. In 2022, 24% of the UCT inventors were postgraduate students, with 76% of them being staff members. This level is similar to levels seen since 2020. Interestingly, the postgraduate inventor levels were higher (32 to 36%) before COVID-19 and as the numbers of invention disclosures increase to those seen pre COVID-19, the student inventorship will hopefully similarly increase.
Awards
The event ended with a celebratory ceremony where new Inventors were awarded the famous RC&I inventor mugs, others patent certificates and NIPMO certificates of acknowledgement. Echoing the excitement of the awardees Andrew added that “the mug gives an inventor bragging rights because it has an iconic meaning to a new inventor.”
One of the awardees said “this achievement is a testament to the dedication and ingenuity of the team, who have worked tirelessly to develop a device that has the potential to change lives.”
The new Idea 2 Impact (i2!) programme, run for a second time in 2023, primarily targeting postgraduate students will also hopefully lead to an increase in student participation in innovation. The programme aims to equip its diverse cohort of learners from various faculties with the necessary skill set and experience to transition their research into marketable commodities by licensing or creating high-growth technology companies.
The 2023 i2i cohort of students were presented with completion certificates at the event.
The Inventors Breakfast event was a valuable opportunity to not only showcase but also celebrate the incredible work done by UCT Inventors.