In the next few hours, Fast Company SA will be hosting the Most Innovative Companies Summit and Awards. The summit will feature leaders of some of South Africa’s innovative companies.
One of them is Dr McLean Sibanda, former CEO of Innovation Hub, which plays an important role in developing innovative companies in the Gauteng province.
Sibanda will talk about his role in driving innovation in Gauteng townships based on his book, Nuts & Bolts. In his book, he provides practical insights on innovation and entrepreneurship for Africa’s development through a narrative of his seven years of repositioning Sub-Saharan Africa’s first internationally recognised Science and Technology Park, The Innovation Hub.
Included in his book are reflections from entrepreneurs who have all gone on to build successful businesses which will be useful for anyone working on a start-up or innovation, particularly institutions set up to create new products or services.
The musings of various successful entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders provide relevant context, inspiration and examples as to how best make use of support programmes provided by incubators and organisations similar to The Innovation Hub.
In discussing the innovation ecosystem in South Africa, he will be joined by Dr Sumarie Roodt, co-chairperson of the Silicon Cape, another innovation and startup entity based in Cape Town. Dr. Sumarie Roodt is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Systems in the Commerce Faculty at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She has been teaching and conducting research here since 2012. She has also taught at the University of Pretoria (UP) in the Department of Informatics in the Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology faculty. Before joining academia however, she worked as a project manager and strategy consultant for a number of years. Sumarie is a National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher in the Young Emerging Researcher category. We are excited to have on board!
You can register to attend the Fast Company Most Innovative Companies virtual event here: https://bit.ly/2PUTvTk.
