Innovus E-News 39th Edition

Welcome to the family – Noluthando, Joubert and Thandi

We are lucky enough to welcome three remarkable individuals to the Innovus fold this month. They are all very different, very talented, and very happy to be here.

Joubert de Wet - Technology Transfer Manager

Joubert came to us in March 2018 from North-West University, where he was a commercialisation specialist in their Technology Transfer and Innovation Support Office. He “loves working at the intersection of business and technology”, which is handy, considering he has spent much of his time working towards the commercialisation of the renewable energy portfolio we have access to, thanks to the amazing work done (specifically in solar thermal energy) by the brains at SU. We expect this to pay off in the near future. He has also been incredibly busy with two particularly exciting new spin-out company opportunities.
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Sein Media: Building a Recording Studio Like Tech Startup

Most people love movies. Even more love music. Recently formed Sein Media, operating in the heart of Stellenbosch University, are absolute experts at writing, recording and producing audio for both, and are changing the game for everyone, by using thinking not traditionally seen in this industry.

If you’re wondering, their name is pronounced ‘sayne’, which is the Afrikaans word for ‘signal’. The driving force, audio recorder and Sein’s system designer, Gerhard Roux explains the name thus, “It’s about managing the signal-to-noise ratio. Being focussed, without being reductive.” This ethos has carried into the business and is also helping them to redefine what ‘standard’ is in the recording industry.
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HB Thom, meet Adam Small: A New Theatre for a New Era

Over the last 5 decades the HB Thom Theatre has become an icon, a landmark and, some would say, a relic. It desperately needed updating to better serve our students, our theatre-goers and Stellenbosch as a whole. So, we have it one of dramatic proportions.

The theatre community in Stellenbosch is a big part of the heart of Stellenbosch. The heart of this community, since 1965, has been the HB Thom theatre. And ‘has-been’ probably describes it best... Half-a century of wear and tear has made it a drab, outdated version of what it once was in the glory days. So, it’s only fair that that this icon should be calmly and yet dramatically brought, into the present. Here is how SU transitioned HB Thom into Adam Small.
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SU’s Student Entrepreneurship Week 

There are many ways we might be able to repair South Africa’s economy, with entrepreneurship being right at the top of the ‘likely’ pile. But it’s not as easy as simply coming up with a nifty idea, putting it into action and immediately succeeding. Entrepreneurship, like any other pursuit, requires knowledge and skill.

If we want our youth to ‘create their job, rather than find one’, they need all the help they can get, and we have the requisite skills and knowledge they will be searching for one day, right now.
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Custos And The IPR Act: A Success Story

The IPR Act isn’t the lazy, selfish bureaucratic dragon many thought it would be, keeping IP hoarded, and out of the hands of willing investors. Custos, who recently had their patents transferred back to them, at just the right time, is proof that nurturing IP until the inventor who developed it, and their business, is ready to manage it themselves, is a very smart idea.

When the IPR Act came into effect in late 2010, many investors and VCs weren’t exactly thrilled. The more aggressive investors decried the protection of the IP, which they would normally have swooped on and picked up for a song, and the more pragmatic investors worried about the preceived lack of ownership, and increased risk in a system they now had little control over.
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Teamwork is making the dream work in the fight against cancer

With so many exceptional people in and around our University, we have become used to seeing the development many amazing innovations. But when our different faculties bring their disparate skills into focus on a singular problem, the solution is always amplified tenfold. This is the case with Professor Pretorius and Professor Perold, who are working together to speed up the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and cancer.

We have previously featured separate stories on the brilliance of both Prof Willie Perold, who built a hardy, low-cost and flexible range of nanosensors, and Dr Resia Pretorius, who is looking at inflammatory biomarkers as a way of detecting inflammation-related illnesses.
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