A newly launched Design Park is ready to shape the ideas of the Western Cape’s budding inventors, with a R6.5 million fund to finance the best products.

MEC of Economic Opportunities Alan Winde yesterday (14 August) launched the Design Park, based at the new headquarters of the Cape Craft and Design Institute (CCDI). He also opened the call for applications for a brand new Design Innovation Seed Fund.

This is a joint fund between the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism and the Technology Innovation Agency, and will be implemented by the CCDI. This fund will enable entrepreneurs to commercialise their ideas and take them to the marketplace.

The goals of the Design Park include increasing the number of innovations which are commercialised and increase exports of design-related products. “We want to improve the success rate of businesses in the sector by at least 30%. Ultimately this could see the creation of 14 000 jobs,” explained Winde.

“We’re looking for the next Mark Shuttleworth. We want South Africa’s next big innovator to come from the Design Park,” he Winde. “The park and fund offers support to innovators for high-risk early stage innovation. In the park, designers will have access to the space, equipment and resources they need to bring their ideas to life. Because these are shared services, they are able to keep costs low.”

 

Funding

The funding is available to:

• Western Cape based early stage SMEs, entrepreneurs and researchers
• students at Western Cape tertiary institutions that do not have an existing intellectual property claim to the product or service
• pre-revenue businesses in incubation, or entering incubation, or existing SMEs with new products/innovation that are still pre–revenue.