Keep your fingers crossed for South African engineers Collins Saguru and Shalton Mothwa! The pair have been shortlisted to receive the upcoming Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation in June 2018. Launched by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014, the award recognises engineering talent from across sub-Saharan Africa. This year, top innovations include the use…
Japanese engineers have created the Pentabot, a robot inspired by a relative of the starfish called the “brittle star”, which has the unique ability to keep going even when it has lost most of its limbs. By copying the neurological and physical attributes of the brittle star (aka an “ophiuroid”), the Pentabot has successfully emulated…
“In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.” This quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, has the ring of truth: While no-one will knowingly walk into hardship, many who have seen it know never to “waste a good crisis” (as Winston Churchill is thought to have said). Recognising and filling a need borne of disaster…
Market need Unmanned aircraft are becoming a feature of daily life, with applications ranging from recreation, professional photography/videography, sports and movies to environmental monitoring and military surveillance. Usually referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, these systems range from less than 1kg to more than 1 000 kg, offer flight endurance that varies…
Market need Securing linear assets (pipelines, cabling, etc.) and critical infrastructure (military base perimeters, borders, etc.) using conventional technologies can be difficult, prone to false alarms and generally provide alerts after the fact. Because such assets often cover great distances, languish deep underground or traverse areas with no lighting or communications, they’re frequently inaccessible –…
Mozambique’s story is a well-worn one on the African continent – it is a country with enormous natural riches, made inaccessible by poverty and civil war. So celebrations were muted when large natural gas reserves were found off the country’s coast: Bringing the fuel to market was impossible without first sinking significant time and money…
In a previous issue of Tellumat Engenuity we pointed out that innovation needn’t always be about new products. For example, new use cases are sometimes discovered for old technologies. But that doesn’t mean we should settle for ‘upcycling’ as our national brand of innovation! To get out of our economic rut and forge ahead in…
In June 2017, Yolandi Schoeman – a final-year MPhil student in Integrated Water Management studies – joined the steadily growing list of internationally-acclaimed South African science and technology innovators. Earlier, Yolandi – also the CEO of ecological engineering firm Baoberry – swept the floor with rivals at the 2016 South African Global Cleantech Innovation Programme….
