NUST Director for Communication and Marketing, Mr Thabani Mpofu (second from left) hands over a donation of disinfectants and sanitisers to the Headmaster of John Tallach High School, Mr Bonakele Ncube while Mrs Sitheni Badza from NUST Communication and Marketing Department and Mr Sifundo Ngwenya, the Secretary of John Tallach High School's School Development Committee look on, yesterday.
HIGH school pupils have been encouraged to make use of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Innovation Hub to incubate their innovations and assist the country in finding solutions to numerous societal problems.
“Innovation hubs nurture enabling environment where a community of entrepreneurs including students and high school pupils can grow. At the same time, the NUST Innovation Hub serves as a nexus point for the local start-up community, investors, academia, technology companies and the wider private sector. We therefore invite high school pupils to bring their innovations to NUST,” said NUST Director for Communication and Marketing, Mr Thabani Mpofu during a handover of a donation of disinfectants and sanitisers to John Tallach High School on Tuesday.
As part of the national response strategy to Covid-19 pandemic, NUST started manufacturing sanitisers, disinfectants, face masks and person protective equipment (PPE).
When the coronavirus strike, the University quickly set up the country’s second national Covid-19 testing centre at Mpilo Hospital at using its state-of-the-art equipment from the Applied Genetic Testing Centre (AGTC) among other measures of fighting the pandemic.
Mr Mpofu encouraged high school pupil to work together with NUST remotely during this Covid-19 period to create a community of young innovative entrepreneurs.
He said the NUST learning environment encourages students to think outside the box driven by the University motto of “Think In Other Terms”.
“As a demonstration that NUST produces entrepreneurial graduations, one of our student Part 4 Electronic Engineering student, Rutendo Happiness Marandure will be representing Zimbabwean and NUST in Accra, Ghana after winning an award at the 4th Africa Space Generation SGAC-DARA Big Data Hackathon Competition, which was held online from the 1st to the 3rd of December 2020,” said Mr Mpofu.
He said the 3-day online hackathon competition was for students and young professionals in Africa and is part of a programme to develop data science, programming and related skills in the continent in the context of huge radio astronomy projects.
To win the hackathon, Rutendo teamed up with three other participants she met online, Tiwalade Aderemi, Blessing Osarumwense and Andrew Dodzomenyo. They received full sponsorship to travel to Ghana for the 4th Africa Space Generation Workshop to be held in Accra from the 25th to the 26th of February 2021.
Meanwhile, the Headmaster of John Tallach High School, Mr Bonakele Ncube, expressed appreciation for the donation of disinfectants and sanitisers.
“We have been receiving some donations of disinfectants and sanitisers with the label Nustiser and today we are happy that NUST, the producers of the product are here. NUST is our university so we are happy to see them coming to our rescue,” said Mr Ncube. – Chronicle.