College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2022 90 SUSTAINABILITY, INNOVATION AND FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (4IR) The Centre currently sustains itself through the generous prizes won in various hackathons, and we are grateful for the tremendous support from the School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems. However, we recognise the need for long-term financial stability and are actively seeking funding opportunities. We are utilising the expertise of our esteemed advisory board members to assist us in this endeavour. MICT SETA awarded the Centre R1 million to work on special projects for them. As for operational stability, the Centre is wellequipped with established processes to deliver our mandated functions efficiently. Through our innovation hackathons, our students have successfully created commercially viable solutions that have progressed to incubation at TTO and acceleration at Hacklab Foundation programmes. These projects cover various sectors, from agriculture to healthcare, with Agri-Ecco, MyRes, and recently Falsify as standout examples. This solution utilises cutting-edge 4IR technologies such as AI and IoT to connect farmers with essential buyers and improve their crop yields, ultimately enhancing their livelihoods. In contrast, Falsify, uses massive social media information to vet and combat the spreading of hate news. NATIONAL AND GLOBAL FOOTPRINT The Head of the Centre participated in various international events and served as a mentor and judge for solutions at both the Hacklab Foundation in Ghana and the Falling Wall Lab Challenge in Germany. The Technopreneurship Centre’s incredible success is recognised widely across various media platforms, including UJ Communication, Beetroots, ITWeb, Brainstorm magazine, and social media outlets. We hosted a webinar themed, “Hackathons: Enabler for Problem Solving and Innovation”. We have proudly hosted several national hackathons, including two NEMISA and Geekulcha hackathons and Telkom, Discovery, MTN and EPF hackathons that aim to address unemployment, social challenges, and societal and societal and societal socio-economic issues. In addition, he also devoted his time to mentoring and coaching tech start-ups at the SAB Sharp Hackathon (29 July 22), the Imvelisi JustHack (22-24 July 2022), the SATNAC cyber-Hack (19-21 August 2022), the GirlCode Hackathon (6-7 August 2022), and the MTN Business Hackathon (2-4 September 2022). As a testament to Mr Mabokela’s dedication and expertise, students were employed, and received bursaries, and digital skills.
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