Tianjin Vocational Institute donates 3D printers and NB IOT equipment to Luban Workshop at Durban University of Technology

On December 16, 2019, China's Tianjin Vocational Institute (TVI) officially opened the Luban Workshop at South Africa's Durban University of Technology (DUT). Many Luban Workshops are funded by the Provincial Government of Tianjin, which earmarked funds for the program. The value of the grant that supported this specific DUT Luban Workshop is unknown.

In September 2018 at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, President Xi Jinping announced that China will build 10 Luban workshops in Africa to provide vocational and technical training to African youth.

Luban is a famous Chinese structural engineer and the purpose of this project is to teach students high-end technical skills like 3D printing.

From May 6 to 12, 2019, a delegation from DUT was invited to Tianjin, China to visit the Luban Workshop at TVI and the two sides subsequently committed to establishing one at DUT.

In September 2019, the two sides created an implementation plan for two new labs at DUT, one for 3D printing and the other for narrowband (NB) internet-of-things (IOT). DUT would carry out the renovations and TVI would donate the equipment (see Record ID#88544).