The Technology Transfer, Licensing and Commercialisation Centre has already achieved a milestone by manufacturing electricity transformers which were previously imported, a move expected to ease the supply of electricity to household and industrial users.
Director of the Technology, Transfer Licensing and Commercialisation Centre Dr. Eng. Talon Garikayi said the project which started five years ago is now in full throttle and they are now supplying electricity transformers to various sectors and commercial users. This move is expected to ease the supply of electricity to household and industrial users by availing locally-made electricity transformers, cutting on imports.
Powerfirm Engineering Pvt Ltd is company wholly owned by Harare Institute of Technology specialising in power technologies. These include the design and manufacture of both oil and dry power and distribution transformers.
"In the past, a dysfunctional transformer would be dumped into a scrap yard plunging households into lengthy periods of darkness before ZESA imports another one, but this centre can fix the transformers to their original state. All components used in the reengineering processes are sourced locally saving the country of foreign currency." Said Dr. Eng. Garkayi.
This is an important home grown solution that cannot be underestimated and the manufacturing of electricity transformers at HIT dovetails with the country’s industrialisation agenda.
The economy has been negatively affected by the vandalism of electricity infrastructure, so the innovation of transformers by the centre will ease the electricity supply situation and reduce the country’s import bill.
Technology Transfer, Licensing and Commercialisation Centre is currently seized with incubating start-ups with established companies and investors in the areas of energy development, artificial intelligence, and the development of smart programmes in the transport and local authorities’ sectors.
According to Eng. Talon Garikayi, Director of the Technology Transfer, Licensing and Commercialisation Centre (TTLC), they are currently incubating several start-up projects which included PowerTeam Technologies, a company wholly owned by HIT through its commercial arm Institech Holdings. "Other start-up projects by the Centre are Foodtech (Private) Limited and LADS (Private) Limited. PowerTeam is responsible for transformer manufacturing based on patented designs by HIT, while LADS develops business solutions’ softwares for local authorities and the system is already being used by two rural district councils.
"There is also Nhaka Pvt Ltd which has developed the Nhaka e-learning platform in partnership with Telone. The platform has already been adopted by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and will be rolled out soon to more than 1000 schools," said Eng. Garikai.
The Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development has so far released a one million dollar grant for the Technology Transfer, Licensing and Commercialisation Centre to fund its research and innovations development incubation and commercialisation of its projects.