Tshwane, 16 November 2017 - The Innovation Hub, the innovation agency of the Gauteng province established the Gauteng Accelerator Programme (GAP) Innovation Competitions to recognise and reward innovative ideas that have the potential to significantly impact the Gauteng economy have announced the winners in each category today.
GAP seeks innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs that are working on novel ideas that will improve the efficiency of government service delivery, increase the competitiveness of the local economy and enhance the quality of life of ordinary citizens. Categories are in the ICT, Medical, Biosciences, Green economy and township economy. Since inception in 2011, the five categories of GAP attracted more than 1 500 entries and invested over R10 million in seed funding and incubation support to over 55 startups.
In selecting the winners, an independent panel of judges considered business strategy, technology, market, the team, and impact of the technology. Winners were announced during a Gala Dinner Awards that was held at The Innovation Hub during the Global Entrepreneurship Week on Thursday, 16 November 2017.
“As a province, we cannot achieve our innovation goals by working alone. We need to increase our R&D productivity and increase the number of science and engineering graduates from our educational institutions. The only way to build the country’s innovative capacity is through partnership between the public sector, private sector, and academic institutions as well as our international partners- Acting MEC Faith Mazibuko, Department of Economic Development, Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development
"We are excited about the innovations and the calibre of the winners that came out of this year’s GAP Innovation Competitions, we are looking forward to taking this innovation forward to improve service delivery in government and the private sector. The winners will be incubated at The Innovation Hub’s Maxum Business Incubator and receive specialist product development support from the Climate Innovation Centre, mLab, BioPark and the eKasiLabs facilities which are located in the townships" - Mr McLean Sibanda, CEO of The Innovation Hub.
The Winners in the ICT Category are:
1. Multifractal Semiconductors
Multifractal semiconductors is a deep tech/frontier tech startup that has developed enabling technologies for single-chip low-cost high-bandwidth millimet re-wave wireless telecommunications systems such as 5G cellular.
2. ejoobi
ejoobi is a platform were cloud services meet SMS and USSD. ejoobi allows job seekers to sms their cv's without internet.
3. MCX Technologies
MCX Technologies is a Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems manufacturer.
4. ProAutomation
PoolSense is a simple yet smart IoT floater. Just drop it in your pool, install the app and pool maintenance is a breeze.
The Winners in the Green Category are:
1. Ewasteafrica
Recycling of Light Bulb Management options for lamp waste disposal: onsite storage, collection, crushing and the heart of our business “lamp recycling”.
2. Business in a bag
Business In A Bag (BIAB) is a Social Entrepreneurship Company that uses Waterless Cleaning Technology to assist individuals, into creating their own businesses in using Waterless technologies.
3. FerBiGas Bio-Degenerator tanks
The FerBiGas Digester Tank is a upright medium pressure vessel, that is sold fully assembled, just load with decaying matter and it will produce methane gas for utilization and compost as a by-product for gardens or crops.every day posing a serious environmental and financial burden to municipalities.
The Winners in the Medical Category are
1. PRD Solutions
The PARA-TUBE is a wheel chair seating, with a built in toilet, that retro fits into any existing wheel chair. There is a lack of facilities for disabled people globally and the PARA-TUBE allows wheel chair bound or semi wheel chair bound individuals to be able to access any facility without having to leave his/her wheel chair to use the toilet.
2. PydynamixKwameEMR
PydynamixKwameEMR is a medical device integrator and software development company that intends to design, patent and market medical solutions related to Integrated Clinical Environment (ICE) surgical niche markets.
3. Austics
The Austics Cardiology Stethoscope is South Africa’s first high-end stethoscope. Along with the existing function of auscultation, the stethoscope will include options to record, amplify and store patient sounds on a mobile application. The stethoscope will also have the option to share sound files and patient information with other medical professionals, and to manage patient files.
The Winners in the GAP BIOSCIENCE category are
1. Field Lab
Field Lab believes that anyone should be able to perform accurate, rapid biological tests regardless of the infrastructure available, with affordable equipment.
2. LifeBiotech: Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS)
FBS is the most widely used growth supplement for cell culture media in biomedical research and pathology laboratories for diagnostic purposes.
3. High fat diet (HFD) for laboratory animals
TuFat feed is a high fat feed used in animal models to study the pathophysiology of chronic diseases.
The Winners of the Gauteng Accelerator Township Economy are:
1. Technological Plumbing Solutions
Technological plumbing solutions is a plumbing company that offers two innovative products called“Sewage and Geyser spill reporting monitors” that act as a security feature guarding and reporting on geyser leaks and sewage spills as they start to happen.
2. Ispani Group
iSpani is an on demand brand activation platform that enables corporates to be represented directly through brand activators in the communities in which they live.
3. Onke Solutions
Onke Solutions has designed a mobile App called Bantu Words. It’s the first ever crossword puzzle that is in South African vernacular languages, it’s a new concept of promoting various cultures and promoting a trend of using African languages in mobile technology.
4. DiGi Couriers
DiGi Couriers is an app-centric courier company where the public can register their vehicles using the app to become delivery service providers.
About the Awards:
i) GAP Biosciences is run in partnership with the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), and in collaboration with Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta, Georgia. The programme assists scientists and entrepreneurs to pursue commercially viable opportunities for their cutting-edge bioscience technologies. The focused sectors are Agro-processing and health (pharma and cosmeceuticals). The top three winners share R1 million prize money that will go towards business development (R500,000; R300,000 and R200,000 for first, second and third prizes, respectively).
ii) GAP Green is run in collaboration with the South African Climate Innovation Centre South Africa and Schneider. The competition seeks emerging entrepreneurs developing green technology solutions related to energy security, water management, waste and sanitation, sustainable mobility and food security. The top three winners will share R600,000 prize money that goes towards business development.
iii) The GAP Medical is run in partnership with Technology Innovation Agency and we are finalising partnerships with a couple of industry partners. The competition is focused on identifying and nurturing health innovations that will contribute to the improvement of health service delivery within hospitals, it looks specifically on medical technologies and hospital processes. The top three winners will share R450,000 that will be used for business development.
iv) GAP ICT aims to identify researchers and entrepreneurs working on ICT-based solutions to our country’s biggest challenges, from internet of things, artificial intelligence to mobile applications used in education. GAP ICT is a joint project with mLab Southern Africa and Intel. The top four winners will share R600,000 milestone-tied business development money.
