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UFS hosts launch of Khoebo Innovation Promotion Programme

14 November 2024 | Story André Damons | Photo André Damons

Khoebo Innovation Promotion Programme launch 2024 — Staff members from the Directorate Research Development (DRD) at the University of the Free State; Palesa Mgaga, second from right, Tebogo Machethe, centre, and Charelise van Staden, second from right, were thanked for hosting the launch of the Khoebo Innovation Promotion Programme. They are pictured with colleagues from the IDC’s Samkelisiwe Mtsewu, left, and Thato Mogopodi, far right.

The University of the Free State (UFS), represented by the Directorate Research Development (DRD), played host to the Department of Trade Industry and Competition (dtic) and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) for the launch of its Khoebo Innovation Promotion Programme (KIPP).

The launch took place on 5 November in the Sasol Library on the Bloemfontein Campus. Tebogo Machethe, Director: Research Contracts and Innovation at the DRD, said its role was to expose the university researchers to different opportunities and programmes for funding from the IDC and the dtic. It also allowed the researchers to engage potential funders in order to understand what funders look for in a project when considering funding it.

“The aim of IDC KIPP is to assist local entrepreneurs and small to medium enterprises with commercialisation funding. The KIPP offers capital and business support to SMMEs during the early stages of commercialisation with particular emphasis on township and rural entrepreneurs,” said Machethe.

Address uneven distribution of economic development

KIPP is a dtic programme but is managed by the IDC and aims to enable early-stage innovative SMEs to penetrate the market with their locally developed innovations, resulting in a more competitive economic environment and thereby facilitating economic growth in the economy.

According to Machethe, who welcomed the guests, participants and presenters to the launch, some of the funding is geared towards the development of university innovations. Though the focus was on the KIPP launch, he continued, the discussions also encompassed other forms of funding that are available and more geared towards the university innovation.

His address was centred around the university's Vision 130 and how it supports innovation and the entire innovation ecosystem, which seeks to shift the emphasis to research impact, embracing both knowledge and societal impact. Vision 130 identifies the need for a greater focus on collaborative research, research that can attract large-scale funding in niche areas where the university is seen as a national and global leader.

Samkelisiwe Mtsewu, KIPP Account Manager at the IDC, said the programme was introduced to address the uneven distribution of economic development across the country. She said with its capacity, the KIPP programme can contribute to addressing the uneven distribution of economic development.

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Two scientists part of team that discovers the source of the highest energy cosmic rays at the centre of the Milky Way

2016-03-22

Artist's impression of the giant molecular clouds surrounding the Galactic Centre, bombarded by very high energy protons accelerated in the vicinity of the central black hole and subsequently shining in gamma rays.
Artist's impression: © Dr Mark A. Garlick/ H.E.S.S. Collaboration

Spotlight photo:
Dr Brian van Soelen and Prof Pieter Meintjes of the UFS Department of Physics.
Photo: Charl Devenish

H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) scientists publically revealed their latest galactic discovery in the international science journal, Nature, on 16 March 2016. These scientists were able to pinpoint the most powerful source of cosmic radiation – which, up to now, remained a mystery.

Part of this team of scientists are Prof Pieter Meintjes and Dr Brian van Soelen, both in the University of the Free State (UFS) Department of Physics. Dr Van Soelen explains that they have discovered a proton PeVatron – a source that can accelerate protons up to energies of ~1 PeV (10^15 eV) – at the centre of the Milky Way. The supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A has been identified as the most plausible source of this unprecedented acceleration of protons.

The protons are accelerated to Very High Energy (VHE) gamma rays. The energy of these protons are 100 times larger than those achieved by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research).

According to Dr Van Soelen, the fact that this research has been published in Nature demonstrates the importance and pioneering nature of the research conducted by H.E.S.S. The H.E.S.S. observatory – operational in Namibia – is a collaboration between 42 scientific institutions in 12 countries.

In 2006, H.E.S.S. was awarded the Descartes Prize of the European Commission – the highest recognition for collaborative research – and in 2010 the prestigious Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society. The extent of the observatory’s significance places it among the ranks of the Hubble Space Telescope and the telescopes of the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

“The next generation VHE gamma-ray telescope,” Dr Van Soelen says, “will be the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), which is currently in the design and development stage.” Both Dr Van Soelen and Prof Meintjes are part of this project as well.

H.E.S.S. has issued a complete statement about the paper published in Nature.

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