The Da Vinci Institute for Technology Management has its roots back in 1995 when, as a result of high level discussions between the South African government and the British government, a need for a new approach to the development of managers was identified.  As a result of these high level interactions and by virtue of the new dispensation in South Africa, the University of Warwick decided to establish a presence in South Africa. Warwick’s insistence on having a local South African partnership which was not tainted with educational practices pre-dating the new dispensation resulted in the establishment of an entity called Morgan Education Technologies. Morgan became the formal partner of the University of Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG).

The interest shown by the South African government in the Warwick Manufacturing Group was based on the international success of their cooperative education model. Most notably, this education model achieved transformation of the management strata within both developed and developing countries.  Perhaps the greatest success story and the key reason for the intense interest shown in WMG was the fact that the then Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had invited Warwick to establish a presence in Kuala Lumpur which resulted in the funding of an $80 million Warwick Centre.

The fact that a British-based educational model had been successfully transferred, both in terms of its philosophy and to some extent its course content, to a totally dissimilar culture was seen to be an important issue favouring this particular educational model.
Starting primarily as an agent for the Warwick Manufacturing Group, Morgan Education Technologies was able to persuade Eskom and the CSIR to sponsor the first cohort of twenty-five students. As the programme was rolled out, it soon became apparent that firstly there was a need to “South Africanise” a lot of the Warwick content and secondly, by virtue of the unique circumstances which prevailed in South Africa, it was necessary for Morgan Education Technologies to establish an academic base. This base would provide both academic support and supervision to students.  The decision to expand the original mandate of Morgan Education Technologies to become a more formal educational organisation resulted in Morgan Education Technologies undergoing a transition from being a “post box”, to an operation which, under the auspices of the University of Warwick, provided an academic support infrastructure.

Morgan now became firmly entrenched as an academic organisation developing courseware, delivering courseware, supervising Masters degree and Doctorate candidates as well as providing all the necessary administrative and additional academic support to ensure success.  Morgan was now delivering over 65% of the academic content of the University of Warwick Masters Degree programme.

Transformation
Concurrent with these developments came the expression of a growing interest in the model from many local organisations, and in particular, the Warwick/Morgan partnership received some important “buy in” signals from the then Deputy President – Thabo Mbeki. The Deputy President, working in close cooperation with the then Minister of Public Enterprises, Minister Stella Sigau, launched the Public Enterprises 2000 programme.  This programme was aimed at creating a cadre of people in the State Owned Enterprises who would be able to lead the transformation agenda.  The most significant development arising from the launch of the Public Enterprises 2000 programme was a request from Eskom to develop a special programme to meet their racial and gender commitments to government.  In particular, Eskom, after two abortive attempts, challenged Morgan to develop a programme aimed at taking forty black women science graduates through an intensive education and socialisation programme, with a view to developing a cohort of technology managers who would then be deployed at Eskom operations.  This challenge resulted in Morgan having to once again reorganise its infrastructure. In particular, in terms of Eskom’s need to produce people who were fully acquainted with Eskom’s technologies and operations, it was necessary to co-design a number of the course offerings with Eskom subject matter experts.

The launch of the Eskom CEO Programme was heralded as a risky undertaking and was viewed in many quarters with some scepticism.  Fortunately, the programme was an outstanding success and Eskom contracted with Morgan to develop a second cohort of fifty black women.  The Eskom CEO Programme cemented within Morgan two equally important principles: that of responsiveness to industry needs and a strong social agenda. This programme has become the pre-cursor to several subsequent initiatives in which the transformation agenda of the nation is central.

Research
In parallel with the academic offerings, Morgan was actively involved in the delivery of the Technology Top 100 Business Awards programme (TT100).  This programme was designed with a view to identifying so called “technologically excellent companies”. The definition of a technologically excellent company went way beyond an organisation’s capacity to develop technology, focusing rather on effective use of technology, and embracing a diversity of facets such as human, financial and technology dimensions and above all, the ability of these organisations to innovate.

It soon became apparent that here was a unique opportunity to develop a South African brand of technology management.  As a result of intensive discussions with both the South African government and various private sector organisations, a decision was taken to establish a research group – Da Vinci Research.  The primary focus of Da Vinci Research was to capture the key learning which came out of the TT100 and to start translating that learning into formal academic offerings.

Da Vinci Research embarked on the development of a sophisticated adjudication process aimed specifically at identifying the key characteristics which define a globally competitive organisation. More importantly, Da Vinci Research sought to define a set of metrics which would stand up to both academic and business scrutiny as being robust and comprehensive and in so doing achieve a widely accepted definition of a so called “technologically excellent” operation.

New legislation
In its progress through various iterations and change in ownership, Morgan Education Technologies eventually became known as Morgan University Alliance and finally as the Warwick Institute.  Following the promulgation of new legislation which impacted on the operational requirements for international universities in South Africa, serious discussions were held between the Warwick Institute and the University of Warwick.  The University of Warwick took the decision that it was not prepared to meet the new requirements of the South African government and a decision was taken in consultation with the Department of Education to stop the Warwick operations in South Africa.
A consultative process ensued which resulted in a decision to transform the Warwick Institute into The Da Vinci Institute for Technology Management, and to combine with the Da Vinci Research organisation under the banner of Da Vinci Holdings. Blending the teaching and research organisations together provided a unique infrastructure which could adequately meet the requirements of the market for an academic organisation with both an educational offering and a very solid research offering.

During 2003, application was made to the Council on Higher Education (CHE) for accreditation of:

•     a PhD (Management of Technology and Innovation) and
•     an MSc (Management of Technology and Innovation)

This was followed in 2004 with a subsequent application pertaining to:

•     a Diploma (Management of Technology and Innovation) and
•     a Certificate (Management of Technology and Innovation)

Conditional accreditation for all four programmes for a period until 31 December 2006 was accorded during that year. In December 2005 a further submission was made addressing the conditions of accreditation.  Registration with the Department of Education and accreditation of the four qualifications with The Council on Higher Education (CHE) was confirmed during October 2006.  The next step was to ensure that the four qualifications were recorded with The South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).  This was achieved during June 2007. These four programmes constitute the suite of formal offerings of The Da Vinci Institute, positioning the institution as a “school of management” in the field the Management of Technology and Innovation.