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02 July 2019
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Story Eloise Calitz
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Photo Keagan Nkwaira
Audience members listening attentively to the presentations at the Entrepreneurship Inter-varsity on the Bloemfontein Campus.
The UFS continuously creates opportunities for students to develop and explore platforms where they can showcase their talents and share their innovative concepts. In the light of this, it is important for the institution to become a preferred academic knowledge partner that can conceptualise, develop, and successfully commercialise research activities, and through this foster an innovative and entrepreneurial culture that aligns to its Integrated Transformation Plan.
This is why opportunities such as the Entrepreneurship Intervarsity Competition are so important, since it encourages students to demonstrate their entrepreneurial talent, and through this connect with investors and industry leaders to start up a business.
The competition
Student entrepreneurs across the 26 public universities in South Africa were invited to submit their innovative ideas as part of a competition supported by Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE), in collaboration with the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation. The opportunities created through this initiative are twofold:
1. For student entrepreneurs to present their innovative ideas and businesses.
2. For universities to demonstrate their entrepreneurial talent and the ways in which they support and grow the next generation of business leaders.
The competition takes place in five stages. The process started with each student submitting their short videos and applications on the official competition site. Each institution also had the opportunity to select student entrepreneurs to take part in the competition. Fifteen students pitched their ideas during internal rounds at the UFS on 30 May 2019. Of these students, four were selected to represent the UFS at the regional rounds of the Entrepreneurship Intervarsity, where the finalists will be chosen.
The students were judged in four categories:
• Category 1: Innovative Ideas
• Category 2: Tech Businesses (existing businesses, formal or informal, undergrad or postgrad)
• Category 3: Social Impact Businesses (existing businesses, formal or informal, undergrad or postgrad)
• Category 4: General (existing businesses, formal or informal, undergrad or postgrad)
The following UFS entrants were selected to take part in the regional finals:
• Christopher Rothman for his liquid yeast culture that can be used in the fermentation of beer.
• Driaan-Lou Kemp for his patented water-saving device.
• Grace Mthembu for her electricity-saving system.
• Martin Clarke for his idea to use drone technology for the mining industry
Fighting the tuberculosis battle as a collective
2015-09-28
The team hard at work making South Africa a
healthier place |
Tuberculosis (TB) is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide due to a single infectious agent. More than 95% of TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Despite being more prevalent among men than women, TB remains one of the top five causes of death amongst women between the ages of 15 and 44 years. While everyone is at risk for contracting TB, those most at risk include children under the age of five and the elderly. In addition, research indicates that individuals with compromised immune systems, household contacts with pulmonary TB patients, and healthcare workers are also at increased risk for contracting TB.
According to the Deputy Director of the Centre for Health Systems Research and Development (CHSR&D) at the UFS, Dr Michelle Engelbrecht, research has found that healthcare workers may be three times more likely to be infected by TB than the general population.
The unsettling fact
“Research done in health facilities in South Africa has found that nurses do not often participate in basic prevention acts, such as opening windows and wearing respirators when attending to infectious TB patients,” she explained.
In response to this concern, CHSR&D, which operates within the Faculty of Humanities at the the University of the Free State (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus has developed a research project to investigate TB prevention and infection control in primary healthcare facilities and households in Mangaung Metropolitan.
Action to counter the statistics
A team of four researchers and eight field workers from CHSR&D are in the process of gathering baseline data from the 41 primary healthcare facilities in Mangaung. The baseline comprises a facility assessment conducted with the TB nurse, and observations at each of the facilities. Individual interviews are also conducted with community caregivers, as well as TB and general patients. Self-administered questionnaires on knowledge, attitudes, and practices about TB infection control are completed by all nurses and facility-based community caregivers.
Healthcare workers are the main focus of this research, given their increased risk of acquiring TB in healthcare settings. At clinics, interventions will be developed to improve infection control practices by both healthcare workers and patients. TB patients’ households are also visited to screen household contacts for TB. Those found to have symptoms suggesting TB infection are referred to the clinics for further assessment and treatment.
The findings of this study will serve to inform the development of an intervention to address TB prevention and infection control in primary healthcare facilities. Further funding will be sought to implement and evaluate the intervention.
Curbing future infections and subsequent deaths as a result of TB is the priority for the UFS. The cooperation and collaboration of the community, government, and sponsors will ensure that this project is a success, hence prolonging life expectancy.