Speakers include Nic Klopper, CEO of hearScreen, a serial entrepreneur, and start-up investor. He has founded seven successful businesses and exited several of them. He excels at the analysis and commercialisation of market disruptive products and platforms. 

Sean Kruger is the coordinator at the Library MakersSpace, a creative laboratory where people with ideas can get together with people who have the technical ability to make these ideas become a reality. The Library MakerSpace, with its soldering benches, 3D printers and computers on which to design and render models, enables makers to fulfil their creative potential by giving them access to specialised equipment and a collaborative space in which to work. This facility is located on Level 3 of the Merensky 2 Library on UP’s Hatfield Campus. 

The National Intellectual Property Office, an initiative of the Department of Science and Technology, responsible for implementing the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development, will be represented at the event. This organisation makes provision that intellectual property emanating from publicly financed research and development is identified, protected, utilised and commercialised.

Other organisations that will be represented include the Industrial Development Corporation, which is a national development finance institution, set up to promote economic growth and industrial development; and the Technology Innovation Agency, a national public entity that serves as the key institutional intervention to bridge the innovation chasm between research and development from higher education institutions, science councils, public entities, and private sector, and commercialisation.

TuksNovation, a high-tech business incubator and accelerator initiative of the University of Pretoria that was initiated within the Faculty of Engineering Built Environment and Information Technology, will be present; along with the University of Pretoria Business Incubator (UPBI, a student-run business incubator. It helps aspiring young entrepreneurs build the companies that will shape the future by equipping them with the tools, skills and connections that they need to turn that dream into a tangible reality. 

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