Students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal have won the R300 000 first prize in the National Innovation Competition for their Smart Bolt project.
The team, headed by Clinton Bermont, a final year PHD student, says the project is an innovative way to measure stresses and loads placed on a structure.
"The most apparent use for the invention is in the mining sector, where the Smart Bolt and the Smart Load Cell could be used to evaluate if the stress being placed on a structure in a mine is coming close to a dangerous level," he says.
Smart Bolt has passed the design and testing phase and will soon enter the prototyping phase.
"The Smart Bolt is a device that can be easily commercialised, solves a serious problem and is relatively inexpensive to implement," says Dr Eugene Lottering, executive director of the Innovation Fund.
This is the first year that the Innovation Fund focused on tertiary institutions, as it previously only focused on funding in the research community.
"We are determined to further develop a culture of innovative research across the country in the higher education environment. The National Innovation Competition is a huge step in the right direction but the work is not complete yet. In conjunction with the Department of Science and Technology, we will continue to work with educational institutions across the country and make sure that we develop the next generation of South African entrepreneurs to be truly world-class," says Lottering.
Half of the R300 000 first prize will go to Bermont's department at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to help previously disadvantaged students in the area of innovation. The other half will be used to further the research on the Smart Bolt project.
The runner-up spot went to North-West University for the Intelligent Sparkplug, while the University of Pretoria finished third with the Tuberculosis Diagnostic Device.
The Innovation Fund is managed by the National Research Foundation and is funded by the Department of Science and Technology.
The Innovation Fund aims to promote SA's economic competitiveness through investments in technological innovation that leads to the establishment of new enterprises and the expansion of existing industrial sectors for the benefit of all South Africans, says Lottering.
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