FEATURE
WITS COULD SPAWN THE NEXT IBM, GOOGLE, NEW VICE CHANCELLOR EXPLAINS HOW On 1 January 2021, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi assumed the office of Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (Wits). Prior to his new role Vilakazi , who’s an expert in physics and nuclear research, was the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Postgraduate Studies at Wits.
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e is credited for leading South Africa’s entry into the CERN research programme in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, the academic played a key role in establishing the $50-million IBM Research Laboratory at Wits incubator Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, as well as securing the university’s place as the first academic partner in the development of practical applications through access to the IBM Quantum Computing network. Vilakazi who describes startups as a subject he loves, told Synapse in a recent interview that he wants to make tech innovation and entrepreneurship a key focus of his tenure. “I really put that at the frontier of what will be the mission drivers of the university as I take the vice chancellorship. We need our graduates not to become employees, but to become employers. To have the ability to start their own companies,” he says. He points out that last year, Wits spawned three profit-making startups. “They are small, largely focused around energy and health. And these companies are running at a profit because they’ve gone through the whole chain of researchers coming with an idea and then taking the idea
to the next level cannot be done by a scientist or an academic. It needs someone who really has an understanding of managing the space,” he adds. Silicon Valley in Braamfontein He explains that the university wants not only its students, but other young entrepreneurs, to use infrastructure like the Tshimologong Digital Precinct in Braamfontein. “We have a space that is open to all youngsters and a few weeks just being in that kind of a creative space where they can come and experiment with ideas and take that idea to the next level,” he says.
The university also supports its entrepreneurs through the Wits Innovation Hub, a commercial enterprise through which it manages intellectual property of startups. Vilakazi says Wits is looking to use Tshimologong to push digital and tech innovation in a “much more focused and dedicated way”. He envisions Braamfontein becoming the next biggest tech hub. “We want to convert that effectively into a sort of Silicon Valley. Start with an idea in a lab, tinker in a lab and then just go down the road, play with other entrepreneurs and test the idea out and let there idea go through. And I think we are moving at speed now.
1ST QUARTER 2021 | SYNAPSE
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