College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2022 89 POLICY AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENTS AND ACTIVITIES The Centre engaged in several other public engagements and activities in 2022. First, Mr Ronny Mabokela (Head of Centre) was interviewed by the radio station 702 and the BRICS skills challenge team, NEMISA media and ITWeb media regarding innovations, hackathons and how they fit in within UJ and national policies. In 2022, Mr Ronny Mabokela appeared on numerous platforms to participate as a tech innovation judge and mentor. He judged innovative tech solutions nationally and internationally. These events were innovation hackathons such as the Centre for Public Service Innovation, ITWeb security summit Hackathon (1-2 July 2022), the Rivonia Circle - Power to Act Hack (13 - 14 August 2022), the MTN App of the Year (17-18 September 2022), and the Global Healthcare Hackathon hosted by Hack for Earth Foundation and the Empire Partner Foundation. All these events aimed to accelerate youth skills development and develop business startups that will boost the South African economy. He played an integral role in several public webinars aimed at advising and assisting inventors in various areas of intellectual property (IP) protection and technology commercialisation. This included drafting relevant legal agreements, managing the patenting of inventions, and registering trademarks, establishing start-up companies, and acquiring equity in established companies after conducting commercial due diligence. He also worked closely with Startup Business Campus, UJ Technology Transfer Office (TTO), and 22 on Sloane to guide students on commercially viable ideas and solutions. In addition, our team organised and participated in various innovation hackathons and webinars focused on 4IR-related technologies. We partnered with several impactful organisations, including CPSI, QuidPro, CV VC, HackCorruption, Hack for Earth, Empire Partner Foundation (EPF), NEMISA, Telkom, ITWeb Security Summit, GirlCode, Rivonia Circle, and Umthata 4IR Expo. Notably, our UJ TPC team emerged as the overall winner and best women hackers at the CPSI hackathon in February 2022, and won various other hackathons, including the Data Science Hackathon, USA-based HackCorruption hackathon, Blockchain Innovation Bootcamp, and Hackathon, and SATNAC CYBER HACK. Our team also secured the 2nd prize at the global healthcare hackathon hosted by Hack for Earth and EPF and won the NEMISA Datathon with a cash prize of R100 000.00 for incubation and improvement of the solution. RESEARCH ACTIVITIES Our students, in collaboration with our partners, engage in research to create innovative solutions and assess the impact of hackathons on skills development. Currently, we are in the process of analysing the data collected from these contributions. However, we have planned publications in collaboration with the Department of Marketing and Applied Information Systems to publish journal articles on hackathons’ role in creating solutions and technopreneurship in accelerating innovation and digital skill development. We also plan to collaborate with the Innovation hub to develop a sustainable incubation and digital skill development framework.
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