Tshwane, 16 Nov 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, has announced the finalists 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 have attracted more than 1 500 entries and invested over R10 million in seed funding and incubation support to over 55 start-ups.
In selecting the finalists, an independent panel of judges considered business strategy, technology, market, the team, and impact of the technology. Winners will be announced during a Gala Dinner Awards, to be held at The Innovation Hub during the Global Entrepreneurship Week, on Thursday, 16 November 2017.
The finalists in the ICT Category are:
1. Unathi Rasana from miShift: miShift App is a mobile digital media tool to manage shift rosters.
2. Heinrich Heesen from PoolSense Pool Water Monitor: PoolSense is a simple yet smart IOT floater. Just drop it in your pool, install the app and pool maintenance is a breeze.
3. Thulane Vincent Mathebula from Smart Multiplug: A three-in-one smart multi-plug/rack which integrates a single zone alarm, sensing via PIR for security, as well as a GSM (global system for mobile phones) quad band for monitoring and control of home appliances via mobile phone through SMS.
4. Henco Schoeman from 24Gate Keeper: 24Gate Keeper is a low-cost visitor monitoring system that tracks visitors using smartphones and the Internet. Businesses can replace their paper visitors' book and comply with the new Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI).
5. Juan Bothma from Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality: They aim to bring immersive, easy-to-use applications with natural human interaction to businesses that cannot seem to solve their problems with traditional two-dimensional applications in an environment to solve physical world problems.
6. Nishant Singh: Front-end data-processing and filtering solutions for 5G wireless communication systems.
7. Simangele Mphahlele from Ejoobi: ejoobi is a platform where cloud services meet SMS and USSD.
8. Yusuf Khan from MCX Food Computer: MCX Technologies is a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) systems manufacturer.
The finalists in the Green Category are:
1. Thulani Khumalo: from Sewage and Geyser spill reporting monitors: Technological plumbing solutions is a plumbing company that aims to offer two innovative products called Sewage and Geyser spill reporting monitors.
2. Pravashen Naidoo from Recycling of Lightbulbs: Management options for lamp waste disposal include onsite storage, collection, crushing and 'lamp recycling'.
3. Armand Aime Eroko A Zintchem from Biological Treatment of Wastewater: South Africa is a semi-arid country that faces water scarcity, therefore there is a need for cheap and safe implementation methods for treatment.
4. Tumelo Mobanga from Smart Butt - the stompie: Millions of cigarette butts are discarded every day, posing a serious environmental and financial burden to municipalities.
5. Selatole Kgaugelo Maripane from Business in a Bag (BIAB): a social entrepreneurship company that uses waterless cleaning technology to assist individuals in creating their own businesses in using waterless technologies.
6. Quinton Capito from FerBiGas Bio-Digester Tanks Commercializing: The FerBiGas Digester Tank is an upright medium pressure vessel that is sold fully assembled.
7. Sifiso Mokoena: Gasification of waste streams to produce power or biofuels: the company, Amandla Odhin Bioindustries, believes in turning challenges into opportunities
8. Katlego Gaodigwe from electric car charger/solar: electric vehicle charging station - is an element in an infrastructure that supplies energy for the recharging of electric vehicles such as plug-in electric vehicles, including electric cars, neighbourhood and plug-in hybrids.
The finalists in the Medical Category are
1. Thabo Mashaba from Austics: The Austics Cardiology Stethoscope is South Africa's first high-end stethoscope.
2. Portia Mavhungu from PRD Solutions: The PARA-TUBE is a wheelchair seating, with a built-in toilet, that retrofits into any existing wheel chair.
3. Lerato Khatle, black female from Young MD: The Young MD app is a digital solution for doctors who are still using paper-based methods of recording information.
4. Yao Ayivor from PYDYNAMIX: KwameEMR 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.
5. Moretelo Molefi from Telemedicine Africa: telemedicine is the use of network communication systems to exchange medical information between two or more treatment sites to improve the quality of healthcare services.
The finalists for the Gap Bioscience category are:
1. Lungile Ndlovu from Buboo BioInnovations; technology from Buboo BioInnovations involves synthetic biology and genetic engineering, which is seen as the next disruptive technology with exponential prospects in the agriculture, health and energy sectors.
2. Charles Faul from Field Lab: Field Lab believes anyone should be able to perform accurate, rapid biological tests, regardless of the infrastructure available, with affordable equipment.
3. Malejwane Sejake from Care Curls: Care Curls offers a variety of customised organic hair products, which are formulated and manufactured based on the customer's hair and scalp needs.
4. Malemohang Shoeshoe from 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.
5. Nozizwe Ndlovu from Mulpa Pharmaceuticals: Mulpa Pharmaceuticals offers a natural wound dressing made from the pith of a citrus fruit.
6. Oluwaseyi Mayode Aboyade from LifeBiotech: Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) is the most widely used growth supplement for cell culture media in biomedical research and pathology laboratories for diagnostic purposes.
7. Tendani Musekene from Visual Dream Solution ADS: Visual Dream Solutions ADA (VDSA) is a private company, established in 2013, and started its operations in 2015 with a purpose of developing, producing, marketing and distributing medicine for cardiovascular diseases.
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