Dr Gerrie Booysen, Director and team leader of the CRPM, overall winners of the Fuchs – the Golden Years prize and Ms Jansie Niehaus from NSTF. The CRPM is also the winner of the 2019 NSTF-South32 Award for Innovation: Corporate Organisation.

The Centre for Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (CRPM) at the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) has scooped yet another prize at the Fuchs golden years anniversary project for their medical technology excellence. The Foundation introduced a national flagship project for the 50th anniversary, branded Fuchs – the Golden Years, to mark the important milestone in its history. The anniversary celebration was held on 1^st August 2019.

The ‘Changing Faces, Changing lives’ team competed against 11 other best contestants in the Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) community, and were crowned the best overall winners of the Fuchs 50^th anniversary, walking away with a grand R1 million prize money.

This follows their recent win of the NSTF-South32 Award, also known as the ‘Science Oscars’ of South Africa, for Innovation using 3D printing to reconstruct deformed faces of many South Africans from disadvantaged backgrounds. The prestigious event was held on 27 June 2019 at Gauteng.

The university is currently hosting the Research Chair in Medical Product Development through Additive Manufacturing (3D printing technology)- an initiative intended to enhance South Africa’s research outputs and innovations in areas that are crucial to our national innovation strategy. Hosting of the Research Chair by CUT is just one more achievement to add to its well-notched belts. Since 2015, the university has created new platforms through Additive Manufacturing (AM); allowing staff and students to open up to new ideas that embrace this technology.

The Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation was established on 1 August 1969 (50 years ago), by its founders - Dr Carl and Mrs Emily Fuchs. The foundation is a private philanthropic institution that makes grants in order to fund development initiatives, nationally within South Africa.