A SAPPI control room operator (my daughters step-dad) invented a new grey water quality tester a few years back. What makes his invention interesting is that his invention costs a few rands to manufacture instead of thousands that it replaced allowing them to deploy more of these much needed units in their paper pulp plants.
Was very interesting how he came up with idea - basically a light source on one side and a light sensor receiver on the other side, the measured light indicated the quality of the water.
There is various engineering techniques which originated in SA which are practised worldwide. Also in other industries, like in medicine, even our fire department invented an easy tool to carefully roll turned-over vehicles, oil companies adopted fire & safety techniques from our local officers, many more examples. It is unfortunate in the end of the day that these talent is lured to greener pastures.
Allycad, a CAD program for the IBM PC XT (and later AT), written by Allyson Lawless.
Due to her interest in computer programming she moved on to develop and market civil engineering software and introduced low cost design, CAD and GIS solutions to the South African market. As a result of her marketing efforts her name has become synonymous with civil engineering and she was named IT personality of the Civil Engineering Century when the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) celebrated its centenary in 2003. Although she has sold most of her software interests, AllyCAD is still widely used in South Africa and further afield.*