Mining Indaba 2025: An Opportunity To Promote And Celebrate Excellence In Innovation In The Mining Industry.

By DAYA NAIDOO, ACTING EXECUTIVE: COMMERCIALISATION of the Expertise Innovation Company

Mining has been a cornerstone of South Africa’s economic system for over a century, contributing considerably to the GDP. The nation is among the world’s main producers of minerals, boasting huge reserves of gold, platinum, diamonds, and coal, amongst others.

As delegates collect in February 2025 for the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape City, the Expertise Innovation Company (TIA), an entity of the Division of Science, Expertise and Innovation (DSTI), is there to showcase our work in supporting innovation throughout South Africa, notably within the mining worth chain.

The 2021-2031 Science Expertise and Innovation Decadal Plan highlights the modernization of the mining sector as considered one of its key priorities. That is essential as a result of mining, together with manufacturing and agriculture, considerably contributes to our GDP, exports, and employment however is presently dealing with a decline in productiveness. As mining is a precedence thematic space within the DSI Decadal plan, TIA as an implementing agent, prioritises improvements that can improve the financial competitiveness of the South African mining sector.

TIA helps applied sciences to sustainably enhance course of efficiencies within the extraction and exploitation of pure assets, whereas supporting efforts to scale back employee publicity to hazards. Over the previous decade, TIA has invested roughly R100m in mining applied sciences throughout the whole worth chain. This funding has supported fifteen tasks by way of varied TIA funding devices and programmes. A few of these tasks have even been commercialized globally and are producing royalties for TIA.

Our work additionally helps innovation within the science, expertise, and innovation subject that drives and aligns with the ambitions of the Nationwide Improvement Plan 2030. It particularly focuses on three areas to modernize mining: rock slicing and breaking, digitizing mines, and lengthening their operational lifespan.

Because the driving pressure behind innovation in authorities coverage, TIA will work to place the plan as the basic framework for investing in modernizing the mining sector by way of science, expertise, and innovation. TIA is embarking on an Innovation Programme in partnership with the mining business and different funders. The programme will have a look at growing and deploying applied sciences and innovation to deal with the challenges that the business is dealing with and methods to make use of expertise to deal with them.

TIA performs a vital function in supporting early-stage innovation, particularly inside the mining sector, by offering threat funding for rising applied sciences. In a sector the place operational prices are excessive, and new applied sciences usually carry important threat, early-stage funding permits the event of novel options that may enhance security, effectivity, and sustainability. Mining firms sometimes face challenges like useful resource depletion, environmental laws, and the necessity to enhance productiveness, making innovation important for long-term viability. TIA’s assist helps de-risk the event course of, permitting firms to check and refine new applied sciences earlier than scaling them up, thereby rising the chance of profitable adoption. Furthermore, it encourages collaboration between analysis establishments, startups, and established gamers, driving progress and competitiveness inside the sector whereas addressing key points like tools put on, security, and environmental affect.

On the Mining Indaba, we is not going to solely spotlight our monetary and non-financial assist choices but additionally entice different traders to associate with us. We will likely be showcasing our achievements in supporting mining improvements.

Our work acknowledges the necessity for assist, leveraging, and coordination of present applications just like the SA Mining RDI Technique and different R&D initiatives. This contains working with authentic tools producers for tools manufacturing and specializing in mineral beneficiation for supplies like titanium, aluminium, and metal.

TIA focuses on improvements that improve the financial competitiveness of South Africa’s mining sector, completely aligning with this yr’s Mining Indaba theme: “Future-proofing African Mining, At the moment.”

Daya Naidoo is the Appearing Govt: Commercialisation on the Expertise Innovation Company, an entity of the Division of Science, Expertise and Innovation.