The Innovation Hub

The Innovation Hub, the innovation agency of South Africa’s Gauteng Province, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency. It was established by the provincial government to promote economic development and competitiveness of Gauteng through fostering innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Innovation Hub offers a number of incubation programmes in the bioeconomy (agro processing and pharmaceutical), Smart Industries (ICT and advanced manufacturing) and Green Economy (Water purification, waste management and renewable energy).

The park runs five different incubators: Maxum Business Incubators focusing on ICT and Advanced Manufacturing; and the Climate Innovation Centre South Africa, which provides business development support to startups in the green economy in collaboration with the World Bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s green fund, with energy, water and waste as its focus sectors. Biopark@Gauteng supports startups in the health and industrial biotechnology sectors, while eKasiLabs works with entrepreneurs in Smart Industry (ICT and advanced manufacturing), Bio-economy, Green economy, Creative Economy and Multimedia. Mlab Southern Africa provides a tech space for mobile entrepreneurs to develop mobile applications.

In addition, the park operates a range of enterprise and skills development and innovation enabling programmes both in the science park and throughout the region. These include an open innovation exchange and a regional innovation competition, as well as a schools FabLab to facilitate access to training in technology, and CoachLab® youth skills development programme.