Community engagement wing under the Innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Midlands umbrella is a department or division dedicated to providing calculated support to its neighboring communities, in alignment with the Durban University of Technology (DUT) Envision 2030 that has refocused the University’s character from being a student-focused to people-centered and engaging University. The purpose is to inculcate entrepreneurship to the communities with the aim of creating sustainable businesses. Inclusivity of communities and schools through its various projects such as Adopt-A-School, One home One Garden, Clean-up campaign and Informal Traders. Community engagement programs are now seen as playing a significant role in informing our approach to the University’s offerings and development.
Innobiz Midlands
“A clean environment, a clear mind” This initiative is about creating stakeholder relations, community engagement, skills transfer amongst DUT students & the community, creating environmental sustainability awareness and green business.
Description: We have adopted four local schools and the neighboring communities with the aim of exposing primary and high school learners to entrepreneurship at a very young age.
- The focus is on:
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- Educating learners about the culture of being responsible with money and that everyone has to work in exchange for the goods and services they need or want.
- Exposing them to various innovations at a young age
- Cultivating a working habit
- Transferring basic business skills
The One Home One Garden Project intends to pledge the university support to its immediate community and to strengthen the relationship between the institution and its people. The project themed Sustainability and Food Security is aimed at addressing food security issues.
Sprouting Entrepreneurs is an entrepreneurship education programme for primary and secondary schools as well as youth development programmes in collaboration with the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. It uses the garden (‘Entrepreneurship Learning Garden’) as a medium of entrepreneurial learning. Additional learning fields include food education and basic agricultural competences.
