A group of GSB graduates and current
students steering Acorn Technologies is
grabbing the headlines with innovative
products and a new internship initiative.
Acorn Technologies is a regional business
and technology incubator, based in the
Western Cape and focused on the life sciences
sector. The organisation is dedicated to
the growth of the sector through the creation
of new enterprise, and its primary activities
centre around the commercialisation of
technology or concepts that are novel,
patentable, and globally competitive.
According to the organisation, an increase
in SMME numbers is not the only driver
of sector growth, and it has developed
initiatives aimed at skills development,
and at increasing linkages between Higher
Tertiary Education (HTE) institutions and
industry.
Acorn has made the news recently with
the launch of a unique internship programme
called Hellfire for promising graduate
scientists. Ten interns have been placed
in thirteen life science companies in the
Western Cape since August 2005.
"There is a huge demand for management
candidates in the life science arena, but
there is a shortage of suitably skilled
people," says
Acorn Technologies CEO Peter Breitenbach
(MBA 1999/00). "Through Hellfire we
hope to develop a feeder market of first-rate
management material."
The Hellfire project is being managed
by Rahima Loghdey, marketing manager at
Acorn and Declan Isaacs, both currently
doing the Post-Graduate Diploma in Management
Practice at the GSB.
Qualified scientists will as part of
Hellfire join a life science business for
a year. In that time they will receive
mentoring from Acorn and customised training
from Cape-based Learn to Lead a South African
business school, run by Kate Blaine who
is also a MBA graduate of the GSB.
Meanwhile Craig Landsberg (MBA 2003)
is playing a key role in the area of product
commercialisation at Acorn. One of the
projects making news is an "apnoea" monitor designed
and patented by Pretoria IT engineer Hans
Pietersen. It was made to protect babies
against cot death by triggering a cellphone
vibrator motor inside their nappies when
sensors detect that breathing has stopped
for 15 seconds.
The device won a South African Bureau of
Standards "Prototype Award" for
design this September.
Acorn Technologies has been involved
in the creation of several businesses since
inception in 2002, and has raised in the
region of R170 million on behalf of clients. |
