Engineering Students Rise to Industry Challenge

BeautyInTech, an African beauty technology and innovation company, challenged CPUT engineering students to reimagine the handheld liquid dispenser, and asked them for ideas.

CPUT used the competition as a launchpad for something bigger – giving students the basis to tackle this challenge, and whatever innovation challenges come next. Through its Technology Transfer & Industry Linkages office, and in collaboration with the European Patent Office partner Sardegna Ricerche, the university built its own training programme alongside the brief and hosted four sessions on the EPO’s Espacenet database, IP principles, and CPUT's own IP policy, led by Sandra Ennas, head of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property at Sardegna Ricerche. The goal was to arm students with real patent-research skills and an understanding of IP before they ever stepped up to pitch, tools most of them had never been taught, and could carry straight into their own research careers.

A total of 117 students applied, and 15 teams were selected to take part, carrying the training with them into the work ahead.

The brief itself was simple to state and hard to do well: take what already exists, use what they now knew about patent research to find the gaps, then make the case to a room of industry experts. Layered underneath was a sharper question still: could South Africa build what it currently imports?

For BeautyInTech founder Beauty Ndlovu, the point was never just the winning idea.

"The goal was not to just have a competition; the goal was to push them towards the direction of innovation, technology in the beauty space and product development."

Students sharpened their pitches under mentorship from Oza Holdings Executive Director Bonani Ndlovu and technology innovation mentor A.N.M. Rafiqul Islam, before facing a judging panel that included A/Prof Oscar Philander and Dr Yohan Mfoumboulou of CPUT's Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering department.

Three prize categories were up for grabs. Pulane Radingwana and Lindobuhle Tibane took first place and the R3 000 top prize for their winning idea. Second place earned R 1500, and third place R500. For Radingwana, the bigger win was what the competition revealed.

"The competition exposed us to the patent industry, an area we had little knowledge of before. As Mechanical Engineering students, it challenged us to apply our technical knowledge beyond engineering and showed us the importance of marketing and commercialisation when presenting innovative ideas."

Prof Veruscha Fester, Assistant Dean: Research, Technology Innovation & Partnership remarked about the collaboration and competition:

"This is what Africa and South Africa needs. Students are given a real industrial challenge, and they apply their skills to develop a product, and that's what being an innovator is all about."

Students left having done more than pitch an idea, BeautyInTech got access to fresh, innovative minds sharpened by real training, while those same students took their first official steps on an innovation journey, stepping out not just as engineering students, but as budding innovators and researchers in their own right.

Written by CPUT News
Email: news@cput.ac.za