The vision of Sleep Science – a spin-off company from the University of Cape Town (UCT) – is to optimise the health, well-being and performance of South Africans through evidence-based, best-practice sleep research, teaching, education and other services.
How Sleep Science came to the marketplace was presented in a case study by Mr Francois Oosthuizen (left), Innovation Commercialisation Manager at UCT, as part of the Train-the-Trainer Workshops of the Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) programme held recently. The workshop, aimed at bridging the gap between research, innovation and commercialisation at South Africa’s public universities, was funded by the British Council and facilitated by experts from Oxentia Ltd — Oxford’s Global Innovation Consultancy.
“Sleep Science is spin-off company that we launched to commercialise the extensive research output from UCT and a group of our academics. The research focused on the multidisciplinary aspects of sleep and strategies to improve it, which is far more complex than anyone can imagine. It involved studying and trying to help many different groups, from the elderly to children and athletes,” he said.