UNISA becomes a participant in The Innovation Hub's CoachLab™

Seen at the 2006 graduation event, ltr Martin Manmohan of the Maxum Business Incubator, Prof Mariki Eloff, Department of Computer Science at UNISA, Dr Jannie Zaaiman, Dean, Faculty of Information and Communications Technology at Tshwane University of Technology, Jill Sawers of the Maxum Business Incubator and Prof Jan Eloff, Head, Department of Computer Science at the University of Pretoria. Guest speaker at the CoachLab™ graduation, Vish Sanghani of MTN, talks about the value that MTN derives from being a partner in this unique skills development and business mentoring programme. Ms Nomhle Canca, CEO of Blue IQ Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Chairman of The Innovation Hub Management Company Board, confirming the Hub's commitment to further expanding the CoachLab™ initiative.

The success of The Innovation Hub's unique CoachLab™ Leadership Programme was evident again at the 2006 graduation ceremony held recently at the Hub's Conference Venue in Pretoria, where the class of 2006 received their graduation certificates and demonstrated the innovative solutions to real-time ICT projects that resulted from their year in the CoachLab™.

In addition, Jill Sawers, Manager of the Maxum Business Incubator at The Innovation Hub, who oversees the CoachLab™ activities, announced that UNISA will become a participant in the CoachLab™ for next year's intake of postgraduate students.

According to Sawers, UNISA's active participation in 2007 is in line with the Hub's vision of growing the CoachLab™ through involving academic institutions of excellence and the pool of postgraduates from which to source enhanced skills and develop industry leaders. "We are also looking to attract private sector partners in this expansion drive," she added.

The CoachLab™ fast tracks the development of business skills amongst postgraduate students, giving them exposure to the realities of both start-up and corporate businesses and allowing them first-hand experience of the entrepreneurial spirit required to succeed in a fast moving business environment.

Awards handed out to the graduates during the event went to Peter Okunzi as the Most Promising Leader, and jointly to Owen Griffin and Patrick Nyelisane for Mentorship Excellence, while MTN's Johanna Joubert and Eric Jacobson were recognised as CoachLab™ Champions.

During their year in the CoachLab™, participants are exposed to a hands-on entrepreneurial learning environment where they work on real-time projects [see the summary of projects] to gain valuable work experience. The focus is on integrating technical knowledge, leadership and practical skills. Within a year candidates can mature into new economy innovators - able to take initiative, work in a team, apply knowledge and solve problems.

The technologies developed by the 2006 participants include multimedia-messaging services, the measurement of speech transmission quality in GSM/3G networks, a wireless network analysis tool, lightweight high-speed WAP gateway, a food store ordering tool, events feedback application, and a wireless/IP access for a human resource database module.

Now in its sixth year of operation, the CoachLab™ is succeeding in its aim of developing world-class human capital for the applied science and technology industry. Run as a partnership between The Innovation Hub, tertiary education and industry, partners respectively provide the infrastructure and entrepreneurial environment, postgraduate candidates and technical expertise, and project work, mentorship, supervision and sponsorship.

The success of this initiative has led to its expansion to include additional partners as co-sponsors and mentors and embrace communications as an additional theme. The 2006 partners and project sponsors were The Innovation Hub, EPI-USE Systems, Cisco Systems, MTN, the University of Pretoria and Tshwane University of Technology. UNISA becomes a participant in 2007.

Managing director of EPI-USE Systems, Danie Behr, confirmed that the class of 2006 showed particular commitment in the transition from the academic to the business world. "They translated academic knowledge into business skills and demonstrated business leadership qualities during the period. It also gave us the opportunity to assist them with informed career decisions".

Brinton Spies at Cisco Systems endorsed this, saying that Cisco will benefit from some of the technologies that the graduates have developed. "We believe that education and innovation are critical ingredients for this country to succeed in the global arena. At the CoachLab™, young innovators create solutions that can be used commercially, adding value to business processes," he added.

And according to MTN's Vish Sanghani, Senior Manager for Human Resources, Learning & Development, one of the most important reasons MTN joined this partnership was the prospect that the CoachLab™ programme would provide the environment for high-calibre students to develop as innovators and entrperenurs at an early stage of their careers. "We believe that this is critical for the development of highly motivated and capable future leaders. It is also an opportunity to contribute to the JIPSA (Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition) initiative, launched by Government in March 2006, " he said.

Since inception in 2001, the CoachLab™ has honed the business skills of 49 postgraduates and prepared them for entry into the business world as active, skilled workers. According to Prof Jan Eloff of the University of Pretoria, their involvement is providing the UP Department of Computer Science with industry collaboration opportunities that expose postgraduate students to the business world and enables them to continue their postgraduate studies on a full time basis. "It is a mutually beneficial situation for industry as well as academia."

Dr Jannie Zaaiman, Dean of the Faculty of Information and Communications at the Tshwane University of Technology concurred. "Participation in the programme has given our students solid insight into the demands of the world of work. We are proud to be associated with the CoachLab™ at The Innovation Hub", he said.

The CoachLab™ is closely associated with the Maxum Business Incubator at The Innovation Hub, where candidates interact with entrepreneurs who are establishing high-tech companies in the Incubator.

The business and education partners involved in the CoachLab™ get the opportunity for a "fresh look" at service and product development while doing due diligence on possible future employees and gaining access to fresh, innovative ideas. Universities benefit from enhanced relationships with industry and from practical exposure to an involvement in industry projects.

According to Arnhem Bezuidenhout, one of the graduates, the mentoring and interacting with influential players in the Hub's physical and virtual networks gave them significant insight into the realities of the business world. "We walk away more confident and better equipped to handle the business environment as young adults with real drive," he said.

Some of the technologies unveiled by the candidates included:

• Multimedia messaging services (MMS) used by network operators are bulky and expensive, while most of the functionality is not fully utilised. The aim of the development of this lightweight MMS Centre is to cut the cost o f maintaining, renting or running such a Centre to relay, sort and forward multimedia messages (MTN-SA sponsored).
  
  
• A current challenge is to provide high-quality, reliable and low-cost voice telephone services over non-dedicated and heterogeneous networks. The project aimed to develop a computerised voice quality measure solution for a mobile communication network (MTN-SA sponsored).
  
  
• A Event Feedback Application systems was developed that allows thousands of users who have attended an event to rate the event via the Cisco IP phone. Cisco is considering commercialising this development (Cisco sponsored).

For more details on the CoachLab™ Leadership Programme, contact Martin Manmohan at +27 12 844 0033 or email at mmanmohan@theinnovationhhub.com.

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