French delegation looking at local investment opportunities visits the Hub

French Minister of Foreign Trade Mr Francois Loos recently visited The Innovation Hub with a delegation of 12 people. Ambassador of France Mr Jean Felix Paganon with Walter Smuts of Expertron Group.

Mr Francois Loos, French Minister of Foreign Trade, visited the Hub towards the end of May this year as part of a French delegation tour to South Africa. The purpose of the visit to the country, which included meetings with President Thabo Mbeki and Minister Alec Erwin of Department of Public Enterprises, was to explore local investment opportunities.

Minister Loos was accompanied by a number of French Cabinet members, the French Ambassador to South Africa, Mr Jean Felix-Paganon, and counselors from the French Embassy. A television crew from France and a group of executives from companies in France, such as Bouygues, Alstom, Danone, L'oreal, Sagem Energy Metering and Sagatel, formed part of the delegation that visited the Hub.

Hub Corporate Affairs Manager Mr Tsietsi Maleho facilitated the visit which included a presentation on the Hub as Africa's first internationally benchmarked Science Park and a quick tour around the Hub's core facilities, the Innovation Centre and the Enterprise Building.

The delegation also spent some time at the maxum Business Incubator, interacting with tenants participating in the various incubation programmes. This included short demonstrations of some of the technologies developed by these companies, such as the virtual reality training models at the Naledi 3D Factory and the eXstreamLITE, a smart new networking device that optimises Internet traffic that has been developed by the Expertron Group.

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