Building stronger ties

Kugan Thaver, Head of the IDC’s Strategic High Impact Projects Strategic Business Unit and Dr Rachel Chikwamba, Group Executive: CSIR Strategic Alliances and Communication at the CSIR/IDC collaboration meeting.

Kugan Thaver, Head of the IDC’s Strategic High Impact Projects Strategic Business Unit and Dr Rachel Chikwamba, Group Executive: CSIR Strategic Alliances and Communication at the CSIR/IDC collaboration meeting.On 17 September 2012, Berenice Lue Marais from the CSIR Strategic Alliances Office hosted a CSIR/Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) delegation at the CSIR Knowledge Commons. “The main purpose of the visit was to elevate the relationship between the CSIR and the IDC to a strategic level, and to prioritise initiatives with large potential for impact,” she said.

The IDC plays a role in sustaining industrial development and innovation by building competitive industries and promoting entrepreneurship. Their priorities include rural development, empowerment of women in industry and environmental awareness.

Dr Rachel Chikwamba, Group Executive: CSIR Strategic Alliances and Communication, said that ties between the two organisations need to be a lot stronger than before. “The vision is beyond commercialisation of existing technologies. We need to get to a point in the alliance where we think and plan together, given that there are a lot of commonalities between the two organisations.”

Kugan Thaver, Head of the IDC’s Strategic High Impact Projects (SHIP) Strategic Business Unit (SBU), shared Chikwamba’s sentiments and said that the relationship between the IDC and the CSIR is an important one; and that effort needs to be put into developing it further.

Delegates at the CSIR/IDC event listen intently to a Bioscience's presentation.

Dr Sean Moolman, Group Manager: CSIR Licensing and Ventures, highlighted that the organisation and the IDC are already collaborating on a number of projects. “We have a 50/50 shareholding in a technology start-up company called Ellipsoid Technology (Pty) Ltd. The IDC is also currently considering potential investment in CSIR start-up opportunities. In addition, the IDC is a potential investor in a scaled-up production facility on the titanium powder production, and is part of the commercialisation team on this project.”

He expressed excitement at the fact that that the relationship between the CSIR and the IDC was gathering momentum and that, “We (the CSIR) can potentially make a valuable contribution to the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission (PICC) Initiative, in which the IDC is playing a significant role.”

The PICC is a massive infrastructure investment programme that is being rolled out by South Africa’s public sector to improve the competitiveness of local industry through enhanced service provision and cost-effectiveness. It will also unlock the economic potential of several regions; some of which have a wealth of resources, and create numerous opportunities for localisation.

CSIR IDC delegates Christo Fourie (IDC), Themba Belle (CSIR), Felicity Blackway (CSIR) and Retief Bruwer( IDC) listening to Bioscience's presentation.

Brian Mphahlele, CSIR Commercialisation Manager, found the discussion with the IDC Venture Capital Strategic Business Unit particularly interesting. “It further highlighted the need to articulate how revenue streams will be generated from technologies developed by the CSIR and which business models will make CSIR start-ups sustainable.”

“The IDC provides non-financial support and are offering to help ‘bake the cake’ with us – by either jointly developing or refining technology exploitation or business models – on technologies developed by the CSIR,” he added.

The delegates then agreed on seven possible areas of collaboration, which are:

1. PICC
2. Information and Communications technology (ICT)
3. Africa
4. Renewable energy
5. Environment and natural resources
6. Clarification on modalities of interaction between CSIR and IDC
7. Bitumen

Lue Marais concluded the discussion by saying that it was important to start working on some projects in order to give traction to the discussion. She said that it is vital to take the conversation to a strategic level by asking what the nation needs for the foreseeable future and what these two institutions can accomplish in collaboration.