Nelson Mandela University's uYilo eMobility Technology Innovation Programme (EMTIP) has introduced the uYilo Kick Start fund, to provide financial support to local innovators looking to develop electric vehicle components, energy storage or charging solutions.
The EMTIP is a national multi-stakeholder collaborative programme focused on electro mobility technology research support and funding, to enable and accelerate the development and commercialisation of South African e-mobility technologies.
The programme is offering its 2017 uYilo fund, a third round of seed funding, established to provide an agile mechanism to accelerate technology readiness levels of e-mobility projects, while examining concepts, technology requirements and demonstrated technology capabilities, according to EMTIP.
Innovators and tech start-ups have until 31 August to apply for the fund and get up to R1 million to help support research and development costs for their projects.
Hiten Parmar, director of the EMTIP, says the programme aims to identify and maximise value in niche technologies that SA has the capability to develop.
"The uYilo Kick Start fund is open to all participants in the electric vehicle innovation chain, including higher education institutions, industry and entrepreneurs. Priority will be given to projects submitted by universities and science councils that have established research in uYilo's focus areas, which are energy storage, electric vehicle system components, charging infrastructure within smart-grids, connected car, and/or industry projects that will lead to local manufacturing of a product or delivery of a service for e-mobility."
Individual project applicants can apply for up to R500 000 per project and collaborative projects with multiple participants can apply for up to R1 million per project. Successful projects will have to demonstrate the intent to further develop and commercialise the technology, he adds.
"The participating project must positively contribute to the establishment of the e-mobility sector in the country and related applied research and development activities. Projects should therefore lead to the creation of e-mobility products, processes or services that can be commercialised; or solve a critical problem that is a barrier to the development of the electric vehicle industry; or show potential for further investment," notes Parmar.
The EMTIP was established at the Nelson Mandela University in 2013, by the Technology Innovation Agency, a specialist agency of the Department of Science and Technology.
Since its inception, the uYilo Kick Start fund has assisted and supported seven e-mobility projects through funding which was channelled towards localisation of product development.
"One such project is GridCars, an open charge point protocol which specialises in electric vehicle charge point technology. The start-up used the winning R500 000 seed funding in 2015 to advance to the compliance expected by the Electric Vehicle Industry Association guidelines. GridCars now has several electric vehicle recharge stations across the country," says EMTIP.
Application forms and guideline documents are available on the uYilo Web site. Final proposals must be submitted via e-mail to uYilo@mandela.ac.za.
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