UJ looks to Finland to encourage local tech startups
22 February 2017
Editor's Choice
News
Speaking at a ceremony at UJ’s Auckland Park campus on 31 January, vice-chancellor Prof Ihron Rensburg explained: “We want to see our students and other young people start businesses valuable to the economy. We want them to create jobs and grow local economies rather than to be looking for employment. Obviously we train them to be ready for the workplace. However, we want far more young people to plan and start businesses, understanding what it takes, how it needs to be done, and what support is available to make it a success.”
From left to right: Dr Kyösti Väkeväinen, vice president: Research, Development and Innovations, Laurea University of Applied Sciences (LUAS); Prof Roy Marcus, council chairperson, UJ; Prof Jouni Koski, president, LUAS; Prof Ihron Rensburg, vice-chancellor, UJ.
Based in Helsinki, Laurea University is known for effectively boosting youth entrepreneurship and services to youth across regions in Finland with its EER entrepreneurial ecosystem programme. Helsinki is also home to SLUSH, the annual global technology startup conference, held at the end of November each year.
“In partnership with Laurea University, we want to encourage far more UJ students setting up small enterprises of their own, especially tech startups,” Rensburg continued. “In Helsinki, about ten thousand young entrepreneurs attend the SLUSH conference every year, which is an extraordinary event. They present their startups to venture capitalists for funding and further development. Many of the startups are founded by Laurea students.”
UJ is exploring an agreement to bring this event to Johannesburg, Rensburg says. “For an entrepreneur, going from a working concept to a viable business is a huge challenge. We want to see young people from across Africa present their startups to venture capital and angel capital, and qualify for funding to get their businesses up and running. We hope to start with South African youth entrepreneurs and go from there.”
Prof Roy Marcus, UJ council chairperson, commented: “The Finnish people have a lot to teach us. They have developed very elegant models for creating startup businesses in science and technology. Laurea offers UJ the opportunity to create collaborations, not only between our universities, but also between South African and Finnish businesses, which is a very exciting aspect of this relationship.”
For more information contact Therese van Wyk, University of Johannesburg, +27 (0)11 559 6332, [email protected], www.uj.ac.za
Further reading:
Enhance SiC device efficiency using merged-pin Schottky diodes
NuVision Electronics
Editor's Choice Power Electronics / Power Management
Silicon carbide (SiC) has advantages over silicon (Si) that make it particularly suitable for Schottky diodes in applications such as fast battery chargers, photovoltaic (PV) battery converters, and traction inverters.
Read more...
What is Wi-Fi HaLow and why choose it for IoT?
iCorp Technologies
Editor's Choice Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT
Wi-Fi HaLow introduces a low power connectivity option that, in contrast to other Wi-Fi options, offers greater range of approximately 1 km, which opens up a raft of IoT use cases.
Read more...
Simple battery charger ICs for any chemistry
Altron Arrow
Editor's Choice Power Electronics / Power Management
The LTC4162 is a highly integrated, high voltage multi-chemistry synchronous monolithic step-down battery charger and PowerPath manager with onboard telemetry functions and optional maximum power point tracking.
Read more...
From the editor's desk: Is the current AI really what we want?
Technews Publishing
Editor's Choice
The companies that develop LLMs need to change direction and concentrate on freeing up our time, not so that we can have more time to do the tasks we don’t want to do in the first place, but rather to allow us more time to do what we love.
Read more...
When it comes to long-term reliability of RF amplifier ICs, focus first on die junction temperature
Altron Arrow
Editor's Choice Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT
When considering the long-term reliability of integrated circuits, a common misconception is that high package or die thermal resistance is problematic. However, high or low thermal resistance, by itself, tells an incomplete story.
Read more...
ICs vs modules: Understanding the technical trade-offs for IoT applications
NuVision Electronics
Editor's Choice DSP, Micros & Memory
As the IoT continues to transform industries, design decisions around wireless connectivity components become increasingly complex with engineers often facing the dilemma of choosing between ICs and wireless modules for their IoT applications.
Read more...
Why bis means business for LTE Cat 1 IoT connections
NuVision Electronics
Editor's Choice Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT
Tomaž Petaros, product manager IoT EMEA at Quectel Wireless Solutions explains why the market for Cat 1bis IoT connections is getting busy.
Read more...
Interview with Brian Aziz, vice president of global sales, Iridium
Editor's Choice
ridium is the leading satellite IoT player. Their network consists of 66 active low Earth orbit satellites covering every inch of the globe and are used for IoT and emergency services worldwide.
Read more...
Accelerating AI adoption in MCU manufacturing
Editor's Choice AI & ML
To gain the value of ML functionality, designers of MCU-based devices have to adopt a new development method and accept a new type of probabilistic rather than deterministic output.
Read more...
Altron Arrow: Empowering innovation with STMicroelectronics AI processors
Altron Arrow
Editor's Choice AI & ML
ST’s AI processors are not only smarter and faster, but also incredibly efficient, enabling a new wave of intelligent solutions across multiple industries.
Read more...
printer friendly version