Blue IQ staged its first Smart Industry Expo at the Sandton Convention Centre last week as part of Blue IQ`s outreach programme, which aims to nurture the relationship between government and business to drive Gauteng`s economy forward.
[VIDEO]"Blue IQ seeks to invest in economic infrastructure so that we can create a knowledge-based economy," says Pradeep Maharaj, Blue IQ CEO. "We need to shift the trajectory of our economy to a higher growth path. This exhibition is geared towards creating a marketplace in the smart industries in the knowledge-based economy for business and people to create relationships."
Visitors to the expo were greeted by a giant blue robot that commented enthusiastically to passers-by and treated them to a competent rendition of 'Somewhere over the Rainbow`.
[VIDEO]The robot was a promotional example of Festo`s technology, and the company`s stand at the expo was a showcase of the technological developments in pneumatics.
[VIDEO]ITWeb also met up with Geoff Crewe-Brown, sales director for IntoWeb, a company that has locally developed a virtual training helpdesk for Novell and Microsoft products. He explained that while Novell has a lot of training for techies, there is very little help provided for the end-user.
"Our virtual helpdesk is now being exported internationally, out of Africa. And we`re the first company to be providing on-the-fly training in the local African languages as well."
[VIDEO]Martin Tjati, research assistant at the CSIR, explained how calcium carbonate is being used to neutralise water at the mines. "They used to use calcium oxide, which was expensive," he said. "Now, calcium carbonate is dirt cheap as it is a waste product from the paper industry."
Tjati explained that in one instance, this process has reduced purification costs from R8 million to R4 million.
[VIDEO]The thundering and whining of machinery welcomed visitors to the industrial section. Les Porter, director of The EDM Shop, showed how an electrically-charged wire could be used to cut intricate shapes in a solid hunk of metal.
Visitors to the show were there to do business, and the intention of relationship building seems to have been borne out, for some of the exhibitors at least.
[VIDEO]"It was surprisingly valuable for us," said Crewe-Brown. "We didn`t know what to expect and were slightly apprehensive about whether it would work for us. It worked brilliantly; we met a whole lot of new prospective clients, and there was a lot more interest than we expected in our product. We`re very excited, it was a very good show for us."
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