A commitment to innovation and economic prosperity is at the heart of central South Africa.

CUT together with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the University of the Free State (UFS) pledged their commitment to innovation and collaboration at the launch of  the Regional Innovation Forum Free State (RIF), which took place at the CUT main campus in Bloemfontein last night, 09 May 2013.

The RIF aims to bring together stakeholders from various segments in the innovation value-chain in order to create strong systems of innovation by facilitating collaboration and supporting project and business development.

Mr Imraan Patel, Deputy Director-General from the Department of Science and Technology said, “the benefit of innovation has the potential to address issues of inequality, poverty and unemployment, by developing a unified vision and identifying areas of strength and capability within the region.”

The Free State Province holds a strong position in the agriculture, mining and the catering and hospitality sectors, which qualifies these sectors as initial focus areas for innovation through collaboration.

Prof. Henk de Jager, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Academics at the CUT said, “the mandate of the Regional Innovation Forum is 100% aligned with the CUT 2020 vision of becoming an engaged university that focuses on producing quality social and technological innovations in socio-economic developments, which is why we are extremely excited about this initiative”.

“This launch must be seen as an important outlet to encourage new ideas and promote constructive engagements between government, universities, business community and civil society on how to empower our communities and help build the economy of this region and South Africa as a whole”, concluded de Jager.

To make a sustainable improvement to local competitiveness and growth, a system that brings together local innovators to exploit the opportunities presented by innovation is required.

Prof. Corli Witthuhn, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at UFS said, ‘we look forward to collaborate closely with all players in the region and are eager to see what this initiative is going to mean for the region and for the country as a whole.”

The forum will ultimately work towards wealth creation within the region through the growth of the local economy.

Prof. Ryk Lues, Head of Department Environmental Health at CUT and the project leader of the RIF said, ‘we believe that when you place all the elements of the innovation value chain around one table, a spontaneous happening of projects will take place to the betterment of the region”.

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A team of four students from CUT won the 2012 Siemens Cyber Junkyard Competition. The competition expected that teams to showcase technology at work in the form of a warehouse stacking system.   Pictured is Johan Nieman, MTech student in Electrical Engineering - he is in one of CUT high-tech engineering laboratories.