Join us for our next CCDI Creative Exchange on Thursday, 03 August as we host Pierre Becker, founder & CEO of Skeg – he’ll provide an understanding of some of the challenges in the fields of innovation and product development and will share some tools that mitigate and address these challenges.

About the speaker:

Pierre completed a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch in 1993 before he commenced employment as Naval Architect for the South African Navy. During 1994 Pierre started a freelance design consultancy and discovered his passion for product development. This resulted in him joining Harwill Medical at the end of 1994 as a Product Designer, where he was responsible for the design and implementation of over 40 patented disposable medical products. During his time at Harwill Medical he was also responsible for the implementation of 3D CAD Systems and CNC capabilities.

After three years Pierre left Harwill Medical as Product Designer and continued with his freelance design consultancy. At the end of 1997, Pierre was approached by Freeplay to become their R&D Engineer. During the following 8 years Pierre built their product development team from 1 individual to a team of 20 engineers, designers and model makers who developed various patented self-powered devices.

Pierre managed a diversely skilled team of people, ranging from research through design, prototyping and operations supervision to supply chain management. He was the Technical Manager of the Cape Town factories, employing up to 600 people. His product development team was also responsible for the commercial manufacture of the products. This included tooling contracts, costings and part lead-time management.

In 2005, Pierre left Freeplay to start Skeg Product Development.

During the last 10 years Skeg has grown from a team of five people to over 30 and is currently the only privately owned successful product development company in South Africa.

It is Pierre’s dream to transform Skeg and establish South Africa’s first product development campus where he can offer his clients offices and laboratories and assist them in turning their product ideas into reality.