Belgium Campus and Bothlale Innovation Village

Following discussions at the recent PASCAL conference in Catania I have been invited to profile the Belgium Campus [2] of which I am Rector, and our Bothlale Innovation Village.

The Belgium Campus is a private higher education institution specialising in ICT, established in 1999 in Pretoria, South Africa.  Its Participative Development Model for Education involves all stakeholders in curriculum development to ensure their needs are met by Belgium Campus's programmes.

• Addressing each student’s individual needs leads to throughput and success rates that exceed those of other universities in South Africa. The Belgium Campus currently outputs around 8% of all ICT graduates in SA annually.
• Full cognisance of the requirements of the academic world creates graduates who excel when following further programmes at universities in South Africa and Europe.
• Meeting the requirements of industry is evidenced by the fact that all graduates are employed on graduation.
• The needs of the region are satisfied, as seen in the fact that many businesses from the region use Belgium Campus to supply their employees with quality education leading to respected qualifications.

Belgium Campus is the first (and currently only) higher education institution in South Africa to develop and deliver a programme especially for the Deaf community.

The Bothlale Innovation Village, details of which are attached,  was established to implement the campus’s belief in the triple helix to deliver innovative solutions that address the needs of all stakeholders in the University-Business-Government partnership. Several projects are already in development and delighting their customers. Bothlale Village will spawn and incubate SMEs to positively impact the regional economy.  This initiative will link closely with Belgium Campus’s envisioned Master of ICT (Innovation) qualification, whose graduates will be ICT experts that are simultaneously innovators and entrepreneurs.

This small institution continues to make an impact with its belief in quality in every endeavour and valuing each partner as a stakeholder whose needs are important.

We look forward to further work with PASCAL.