Former Witsie donates R50 million to his alma mater
Innovators paves the way for future innovators to continue making big changes in the world.
Wits University alumnus and successful Boston-based innovator and entrepreneur Dr David Fine is actively involving himself in helping Wits University establish the Angela and David Fine Chair in Innovation.
According to Wits, the R50-million donation will assist the university in creating an ecosystem to drive researcher-led innovation that will solve some of Africa’s greatest challenges, and advance the public good.
Wits vice-chancellor and principal Professor Zeblon Vilakazi was thankful to Dr Fine for his generosity and commitment to giving back to the institution.
Vilakazi said, “We are very grateful to Dr Fine for walking this #Wits100 journey with us. His generous donation will go a long way toward propelling our research toward innovation, enabling scholars, researchers, students and those with curious minds to seek and create new knowledge, across disciplines and sectors.”
Dr Fine was thanked for leaving a legacy for future generations through his donation which will undoubtedly create an enabling environment for the flourishing of great ideas that will herald this continent into a new era of innovation, change, and growth, said Vilakazi.
Now retired, Dr Fine hopes the donation will support the efforts and challenges faced by innovators. He said, “Innovators are problem solvers. They can think practically across multiple technical disciplines, and use accessible and inexpensive methods and materials to build products and services, that have real-life impact. South Africa needs a culture of innovation. My hope is that the Chair in Innovation will help place Wits at the leading edge of innovation in the Global South.”
Dr Fine graduated from Wits with an honours degree in chemistry in 1964. He later read for a PhD from Leeds University in the United Kingdom, before leaving for the US to run the Combustion Lab at MIT. He worked for 28 years at Thermo Electron (now Thermo Fisher) before establishing two companies of his own – CyTerra in 2000, and Vero-BioTech in 2006.
He has dedicated his life to transitioning high technology chemistry-based instruments from concept and research through to production and commercialisation. From making air travel safer to detecting chemicals that can cause cancer, to developing advanced technologies for finding buried landmines, the curiosity of Dr Fine has resulted in innovations that have impacted society for over 45 years.
