Celebrating Youth Month 2020: Cosmetic science and entrepreneurship in the Eastern Cape
This year, Youth Month will be celebrated under the theme "Youth power: Growing South Africa together in the period of COVID-19".
In 1976 students sacrificed their lives for freedom and the creation of a democratic state; today, young people are called on to help the country fight the coronavirus pandemic and the economic devastation it is leaving in its wake.
This June, the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) is celebrating some remarkable young people whose research and innovation talent will help to take South Africa forward.
The first in our series of articles is about Nomahlubi Nazo, a cosmetic formulation scientist with a background in polymer science, who has developed an organic anti-ageing cream that could also be used to treat wounds.
She has received funding to develop her innovation under the DSI's Grassroots Innovation Programme, which is managed by the Technology Innovation Agency. The Grassroots Innovation Programme was established to support young scientists like Nazo in taking their products to full commercialisation.
The funding is helping her to develop skin healing products for scars, wounds and other skin conditions from biopolymers such as collagen (using fish scales) and hyaluronic acid (using eggshells). Other ingredients are charcoal and herbs.
Nazo is the proud owner of start-up company Foi Science, which offers various services, from custom-designed skincare packs that are delivered directly to the customer's door, to technical support with new product development for other SMMEs in the cosmetics and detergents industries. She is also trialling skincare products for use in hospitals around the country.
Working at Nelson Mandela Bay Science and Technology Centre in Uitenhage, she has been training unemployed women and girls to make cosmetics and detergents.
A recent project in partnership with the science centre saw Nazo teaching 15 people to make hand sanitisers and cloth masks. Two thousand bottles of sanitiser and 1 000 masks were produced for the Mandela Bay Development Agency to donate to hospitals and schools – a valuable contribution in the time of COVID-19.
To get her company off the ground, she entered several business competitions, using her prize money as start-up capital. In 2018, she was named the SA Innovation Summit FemBioBiz Pitching Den Winner in the Student Category. Last year she scooped first prize at the Gordon Institute of Business Science-SAB Foundation Festival of Ideas.
In February, Nazo represented South Africa at the sixth session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development in Zimbabwe.
This enthusiastic young scientist and social entrepreneur is a role model the DSI is proud to support during Youth Month, and as the country looks for innovative ways to respond to its health care and economic recovery challenges.
With South Africa currently in level 3 of the national lockdown to fight the spread of COVID-19, the Youth Month programme will be hosted virtually through platforms such as social media, web-based seminars (or webinars), virtual masterclasses, and television and radio broadcasts. President Cyril Ramaphosa will deliver a virtual keynote address on Youth Day, 16 June 2020.
