Vut F’sasec Wins All Three Places At The Low-Tech Competition

On Thursday, 10 November, Schneider Electric South Africa hosted a Low-Technology Innovation Competition in partnership with Schneider Electric Foundation and Nomade des Mers Expedition at the Schneider Electric Campus in Midrand Johannesburg.

In this competition, various groups of young innovators participated by inventing Low-Tech lighting innovations using mostly recyclable and used material. The purpose of this competition was not only to discover innovative ideas amongst youth but also to enable access to energy using available sustainable Low- Tech material and recyclable material.

The global energy specialist has a team in South Africa dedicated to bringing access to energy and education to various communities as well as raising awareness around sustainability through innovative projects. Schneider Electric’s aim through this mind blowing project is to contribute to the development of people and society through education, innovation, awareness-raising and vocational training in the energy sector.

This competition was held to encourage youth to focus on unique sustainable, innovative projects to find solutions to the country’s biggest challenge which is Energy by ensuring and maximizing access to energy through low- tech innovations.

The VUT French South African Schneider Electric Education Centre group participated in this competition as well as other groups from various institutions including Sci-Bono and took all three prizes from the competition with the 1st place taking home €500, 2nd place €300 and 3rd place €200. Each of the 7 groups were given 1.5 hours to assemble their Low-Tech invention. The innovation had to be simple and easy to assemble anywhere in the world. After the teams assembled all their innovations they presented them to a panel of judges from Schneider Electric as well as members from the Nomade des Mers Expedition.