Early in September of 2021, CUT’s i-Gym held its annual innovation challenge where students were invited to submit their creative projects and present them to a panel of judges.

Winners of innovative projects were awarded cash prizes to develop and improve their ideas further. The first prize went to Tshepo Blom and Lebogang Matlabe for their project: Bridging the African Edu-Tech Device.They received a total of R25 000 towards their creation. The second prize went to Nelson Spogter for his project: Silencing Generators and Add-Ons, he received R15 000 and the third prize of R15 000, went to Amukelani Nkuna and Khanyisa Dlodlo for the project: Traffic Department Online App.

Three other projects that judges were impressed with (and felt that they had potential for improvement) are,  Automatic elevator panel cleaners by Joy Gopane,  ASD flash by Omolemo Rammile and Marquard Swimming Pool Upliftment by Maxwell Sekhoane. They all received R10 000. 

Dr Marcin Bielicki, Research Project Manager at Poznan University of Economics and an Innovation Expert at Sense Consulting, shared his knowledge with the upcoming and aspiring entrepreneurs.

In his address to students, he mentioned that the most important skill in entrepreneurship is to think of being entrepreneurial instead becoming entrepreneurs. “Entrepreneurial means I don’t only want to have a company but, I want to discover something, have the competencies and have a good mindset in order to be ready to become an entrepreneur. If you are entrepreneurial, you can see challenges as not only stumbling blocks but opportunities, and in so doing, you can easily survive very harsh and difficult situations that come with it.”

He further encouraged students to move with the times and constantly develop themselves as the world is changing quickly. “Right now, it doesn’t matter what you know, what matters is how fast you can learn. Everything is changing so fast that when you are in your first year, the knowledge you got will probably be outdated. You have to know where to look for knowledge and constantly develop yourself as this is your responsibility.”

Postgraduate students, winners, and founders of the African Edu-Tech Device, Tshepo Blom, and Lebogang Matlabe, were excited to be announced as first prize winners. “We are very excited about this prize. Our participation in the i-Gym has assisted us to polish our idea a bit. The results are what we were hoping for!  We are grateful to i-Gym for this unique opportunity to develop our prototype. This will give us more runway and resources to advance further.”

Tshepo and Lebogang’s project is an initiative envisioned to address challenges facing South African public schools’ systems, ranging from a lack of textbooks to content teachers and administrative challenges. The device comprises two elements - a learning management system as well as a social media component. The initiative aims to address these problems by making available a free-to-use web and mobile application for schools - teachers and parents.

Caption

1: From left: Mr Krzysztof Adamczak from Currency One (leading Polish FinTech company), Poland; Mr Fred Matongo, Deputy Director, CUTis; Lebogang Matlabe, CUT postgraduate student, Tshepo Blom, CUT postgrad student, Dr Marcin Bielicki, Research Project Manager at Poznan University of Economics Innovation Expert at Sense Consulting and Dr Izabeth Conradie, Manager: Idea Generator (i-GYM) Unit.

2: Ms Grace Baloyi, one of the online adjudicators.