SOUTH Africa is a country that is full of ambitious innovators and original thinkers with enormous potential and capability, according to The Innovation Hub.
The Gauteng innovation agency’s chief executive advocate Pieter Holl said that this was made apparent by the wide variety of entries that the 2021 Gauteng Accelerator Programme (GAP) Innovation competition received. “The judges’ decision was not an easy one given the talent on display, and we would like to offer each of this year’s winners our heartfelt congratulations for this significant achievement. They have set a very high bar for business innovation in South Africa, and we firmly believe that their businesses will be game-changers for the country,” Holl said.
The Innovation Hub announced the winners of its competition at a virtual award ceremony recently. Entries included novel business concepts including an internet of things (IoT) system to prevent load shedding; a digital payment platform for spaza shops; and a portable DNA testing “lab”. Both first-prize winners and their runners-up will all received a share of R3 million in seed funding.
The Innovation Hub said that the GAP competition aimed to foster innovation and entrepreneurship across the five categories of ICT, bioscience, medical, green economy, and the township economy, solving some of the country’s most pressing challenges. Since the competition’s launch in 2011, it said it had received over 1 400 entries, and since invested over R22m towards more than 116 start-ups.
All GAP candidates are required to undergo an intensive year-long business education programme, following which an independent panel of judges selects the final winners based on their strategy and market potential. In addition to seed funding, the winners and runners-up in each competition category will receive incubation services with technical and business mentors, and intellectual property lawyers. The winners will also receive access to The Innovation Hub’s network of industry and government partners.
The first-prize winners in the biosciences category were the Genomyx Lab-in-a-Box by Ronny Mukala Kabongo. As the winner of the biotech category, Kabongo’s Genomyx Lab-in-a-Box (LIAB), offers a portable molecular next-generation sequencing (NGS) laboratory solution for DNA testing in the field, as well as in conventional laboratories. The LIAB includes tools for DNA sample extraction, DNA library preparation, DNA sequencing, and DNA analysis.
The winner of the medical category was Liaison.Health Careware by George Hofmeyer Bennie. This winning entry in the medical category provided an end-to-end modular software platform that performed large-scale health data analysis using blockchain technology.
The winner in the ICT category was Mhlanga’s Wakoomulla platform which gives small and micro-enterprises such as spaza shops and hairdressers the chance to get paid through the Wakoomulla app, instead of card or cash. There is a Wakoomulla app available for smartphone users, as well as a text message-based option (USSD) for non-smartphone users.
The green category was won by Autumn Green by Paseka Litabe who created a system that connected power grids with appliances and machines in the household, industrial, and commercial sector. This system then automatically communicates with the national grid in order to perform load management, and should the grid be under pressure, it switched off all non-essential appliances until the grid was stable.
For the township economy platform, Inqaba Yesizwe Phyto-pharmaceuticals by Phindi Hani took the top prize in the township economy category, with a nano-silver antiviral colloidal silver that was effective against a variety of infections and illnesses including pneumonia, herpes, shingles, and warts.
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE