College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2021 67 Technopreneurship Centre Mr Ronny Mabokela Head: Technopreneurship Centre, School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg OVERVIEW Technopreneurship Centre (TPC) is an ideation and innovation hub where industries and society’s most pressing unresolved challenges can be addressed, researched, and solved by our students, supported by exceptional academics and industry experts. The Centre is the first of its own kind within the University, which is open not only for information technology individuals but to everyone despite of their educational background and to those who want to contribute to the success of this initiative. Looking at 2021, despite of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the most successful and busiest year. In 2021, TPC has established its own industry advisory board consisting of six key members with different expertise. Various successful innovation hackathons and datathons were hosted by TPC including the Data Science hackathon in collaboration with NEMISA, an entity which was under the authority of Honourable Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams but now under Honourable Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. The Head of Technopreneurship Centre was invited to judge and mentor in various innovation platforms. We held various activities and emerged victorious in many hackathon competitions, including international competition for the first time since inception. Some of the activities centred around our innovation hackathons with the aim to develop Innovation and Entrepreneurship ecosystem through which we hosted and participated in 15 innovation hackathons and won 11 of them, including scooping two big awards for Best Solution in AI for Big Data and Healthcare hosted by Hacklab Foundation in Ghana, Accra. TALENT MANAGEMENT AND CAPACITY BUILDING The team is large, versatile, and dynamic. We have key industry partners, collaborators, students, experts, innovators, hackers with different interesting skills and backgrounds that are necessary for the success of the development of ideas, innovative solution, and the Centre at large. In 2021, Head of Centre, Mr Ronny Mabokela, together with 4 TPC Ambassadors, Mr Emmaual Mbuya, Ms Buhle Mpala, Mr Eugene Ndlovu and Mr Chadrack Mulamba, developed a process-call to invite our students from different faculties to The Centre is an ideation and innovation hub where industries and society’s most pressing unresolved challenges are explored and addressed.
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