Converging on the Innovation Hub
15 March 2004
Gauteng province's hi-tech industrial promotion agency Blue IQ has started construction on a state-of-the-art Innovation Hub, a unique R258-million complex where high-tech industry, academia and entrepreneurs will be able to meet and work together.
As the first "science park" in Southern Africa, taking its benchmark from the best such developments in the world, the creativity-driven centre will house a variety of technology-related businesses across a range of disciplines, including electronics, information and communication technology, bio-science, and advance manufacturing sectors such as defence spin-off and automotive manufacturing.
The Hub aims to function as a catalyst for improving South African technology and productivity, and to promote black economic empowerment by acting as an incubator for innovative black start-up companies.
The world-class complex will be located on a 31-hectare tract of land between the Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the University of Pretoria, two of the country's leading research institutions. The first phase of the Hub was officially launched two years ago and has been temporarily housed at the CSIR.
The first phase of construction, comprising an Innovation Centre and multi-tenant Enterprise Centre, is expected to be complete towards the end of 2004. Companies which locate to the Hub will be able to build their own freehold buildings on the site.
Sappi first in line
The Hub's first anchor tenant, paper giant Sappi, announced last year that it had decided in principle to build its new Technology Centre and Training Academy at the Innovation Hub.
Sappi, which has research and development facilities in both the United States and Europe, plans to build a facility at the Hub for researching the group's fibre production processes - and ultimately to house Sappi's core research and development activities,
including fibre processing, biotechnology and environmental impact research.
The facility will also be home to the Sappi Paper Academy, which will provide both technical training for Sappi's operations personnel as well as industry-related distance learning.
Sappi's Bertus van der Merwe said the multinational company believed the Innovation Hub would "enable all of the institutions and businesses involved to leverage off the skills of the others and, in so doing, to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts".
Techological convergence
According to the Hub's CEO, Dr Neville Comins, the centre is being built around the concept of convergence. Comins told Engineering News that the Hub would not be merely an information techonology (IT) centre.
"This is the era of technological convergence, and we don't want to limit the vision of the Hub or its partner companies",
Comins said. "Across the world, we're seeing cross-disciplinary interaction between people and companies, and we want to promote that here as well.
"We're looking for companies to establish research and development centres, and particularly companies doing product and process development", Comins told Engineering News. "These kinds of investments will maximise the interaction between the Hub and the neighbouring institutions", Comins said, referring to the CSIR and the University of Pretoria.
The Hub will also offer value-added support for hi-tech ventures - one example of this being free legal advice on protecting intellectual property from South African law firm Adams & Adams, with whom the Hub has formed a partnership.
As of March 2004, the Innovation Hub website listed 12 companies as clients at the Hub: two in the "pre-incubation" stage, five in incubation, and five as associate companies.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
| 
