McLean Sibanda

McLean Sibanda ((MSc. Eng.) WITS; LLM: Commercial Law (UNISA)), is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa, a registered South African patent attorney and a Partner at Sibanda & Zantwijk Intellectual Property Attorneys.  He is CEO of The Innovation Hub, South Africa’s only Science and Technology Park.  With over 7 years of R&D experience with De Beers Industrial Diamonds, and a wide experience in innovation, intellectual property, technology transfer and commercialization of intellectual property, he has served previously as Group Executive for Commercialisation at the Technology Innovation Agency, Senior Patent Attorney and Acting Executive Director of the Innovation Fund; was involved in establishment of technology transfer offices at higher education institutions, development of patent attorneys for the public sector, as well as the drafting and finalising the legislation and associated regulations on Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research & Development.  He tutors the World Intellectual Property Organisation courses on Advanced Patent Searching and Biotechnology Law.  He has served on a number of boards of start-up companies and currently serves on the boards of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Technifin, Ideanav (www.ideanav.co.za) and the Innovation Hub. //end – October 2011