While doing his research for his PhD in Electrical Engineering, Samuels found that many schools are facing infrastructure and resource limitations and budgetary pressures, which create a need for schools to reduce their electricity usage, save money and, at the same time, get more in line with effective green technologies. His research led to substantial cost savings of between 20-40% at schools and the establishment of GreenX Engineering (GXE), thanks to Innovus, the University’s innovation and commercialisation division.
GreenX provides the full range of services to offer total solutions for energy efficiency and energy projects, including data analytics, modelling, consulting and interventions through energy efficiency lighting, measurement and verification, and electrical systems optimisation. Samuels and his team are also starting a project to install photovoltaic (PV) panels on the school’s roof, which will result in further energy savings.
The Western Cape Education Department in South Africa recently awarded Stellenbosch University spinout company GreenX Engineering the opportunity to pilot IoT energy management and lighting efficiency retrofits at a number of no-fee schools (i.e. schools in very poor communities where zero school fees apply) in the province and help them save on their electricity bills. The project, to the value of R6 million, will see GreenX doing extensive energy audits at the various schools to determine how they can retrofit them with energy-saving lights and meters to measure and manage their usage.

At Stellenbosch University, we discovered that you do not need a large team and budget to create a campuswide paradigm shift in entrepreneurship. It was more important to create role models who can aspire and motivate their colleagues or fellow students and make them believe that they too can do it. With a few resources, hard work and a large amount of passion, our team was able to set up an incubator and create events and programmes, hackathons, bootcamps and tools to support and inspire our campus-based entrepreneurs. By spreading the good news and telling the stories, we were able to build a new culture on campus where entrepreneurs are thriving.

We were also pleasantly surprised to see how successful our efforts were to proactively create a regional network to bring together academia, students, informal sector entrepreneurs, large and small businesses, local government and non-profit entities and organisations. The Stellenbosch Network hosts a number of events, including #ideasforchange competitions where anyone in the region can contribute their ideas to solve specific issues experienced in the region. The local community vote for the best ideas and mentorship is offered to entrepreneurs wishing to take their projects further.

We want to partner with industry to offer co-branded bootcamps far beyond the boundaries of the university to expand our knowledge markets and to have a much wider impact. We want to target schools and help them identify and support their entrepreneurs. This will also attract prospective students who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs to study at our institution.