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ROUND UP
Co-sponsoring PneuDrive Challenge
Finding strategic partners who are committed to sustainable and
meaningful corporate social responsibility, should be an important
part of any international company’s long-termplan when committing
its resources in the SouthAfrican economy.What does your favourite
corporate do in this regard?
SMC Pneumatics (SouthAfrica)
recently
stepped forward as co-sponsors of the 2016 PneuDrive Challenge.
This is an engineering design competition that has been providing
South African mechanical, electronic and mechatronic engineering
students with a bridging experience into business reality since 2008.
Adrian Buddingh, General Manager of SMC Pneumatics, strongly
believes that the competition is an important platform for strengthen-
ing the quality of SouthAfrican engineering qualifications. Buddingh
points out how system integration is not often fully realised at a
university level. "This competition offers the student an opportu-
nity to get exposed to, and consider, other engineering disciplines
apart from those covered in their separate faculties. Showing how
unusual pneumatic and drive components can be pulled together
in a competition type experience is, in reality, a first taster of what
they will experience when they get into industry".
Effective learning needs to go beyond speeches and aca-
demic theory
It is important for local business to seek out opportunities that bring
together academic theory, core business products and real-life
business learning opportunities for young people. In the engineer-
ing industry, key employees of the future will need to be problem
solvers, planners, designers and application constructors. Learning
skills that subject matter experts at SMC Pneumatics are willing to
encourage when they get opportunities to interact with students.
Buddingh expresses enthusiasm at being able to support a learn-
ing platform that gives students an opportunity to capitalise on their
ability to apply theory, and explore innovative ways of bringing
pneumatic and drive technology together. "It is a serious challenge
for companies who seek to honour corporate social responsibil-
ity, to be able to link interventions with their own core business
operations. We are confident that we can achieve this through the
PneuDrive Challenge".
Strategic planning for the 2016 competition has commenced;
the industry themes and problem statements will be announced
before year-end.
Enquiries: Email
media@positiv.co.zaCONTROL SYSTEMS + AUTOMATION
Adrian Buddingh, General Manager SMC Pneumatics South Africa.