Nanoteq

Nanoteq is a South African technology company founded in 1988 and based in Centurion, Pretoria, specialising in cryptographic technology and information security for government, defence, and other sensitive-sector clients, including secure communications systems for military radios and mobile telephony and the protection of strategic information assets and electronic transactions. Reunert acquired full ownership of Nanoteq in September 2016 through its Reunert Applied Electronic Holdings subsidiary, placing the company within Reunert's Applied Electronics segment; in October 2024 Nanoteq merged with fellow Reunert business unit Etion Create, and the combined operation now trades under the Etion Create brand, though Nanoteq's cryptographic and secure-communications work continues within that structure. The bursary programme supports full-time undergraduate study in Computer Engineering (BEng) and Electronic Engineering (BEng) at recognised South African universities, to a maximum value of R120,000 a year per student, awarded on academic merit.

Nanoteq funds bursaries because defence-grade cryptography and secure-communications engineering is a narrow, highly specialised field with very few South African graduates trained in it; the company has said its technical team takes pride in mentoring and developing young engineers and computer scientists, reflecting a workforce-development strategy built around growing scarce, security-cleared technical talent rather than general recruitment marketing.

Publicly available Nanoteq bursary information describes merit-based funding but does not set out a mandatory post-study work-back or service contract; whether a formal employment obligation applies could not be confirmed from public sources, so this should not be assumed.