Educational drone development
16:25 – 16:40 - Prof. Mothibeli Pita, Associate Professor and Associate Chair (Lab commercialisation and collaboration), Unisa's College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Department of Mechanical, Bioresources and Biomedical Engineering
Prof. Pita’s tech talk and exhibition will focus on educational drone development. This is an innovative space that is rapidly evolving, marked by significant market growth and expansion into diverse academic fields. Drones have transitioned from a niche hobby to a powerful, interdisciplinary teaching tool that prepares students with future-ready skills. Notably, some of the drones that Prof. Pita develops, find application in the agricultural sector, in particular precision agriculture, enabling farmers to monitor their crops, manage water and nutrients, and apply pesticides more effectively.
The hardest million: funding food innovation from zero
From pre-seed to production; scaling Africa’s first fungal protein company
16:50 – 17:05 - Steyn du Plessis, CSIR C3, and Charles Reed, MycoSure
MycoSure aims to tackle hunger through sustainable protein technology. But first, its founders had to overcome investor scepticism about bioprocessing. In this talk, Steyn du Plessis and MycoSure co-founder Charles Reed share what it took to secure initial funding and chart the ambitious path towards building their production facility.
Steyn du Plessis
Charles Reed
Mothibeli Pita
