Africa's future depends on the development of new knowledge, says Minister Pandor
The Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, says government is investing in the modernisation of research and development infrastructure in the quest to develop new knowledge.
In particular, government was investing in new facilities like the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) as key components in the drive to ensure that South Africa had the capacity to generate knowledge.
After five years of operational experience, the CHPC has demonstrated maturity in supporting the computationally intensive research agenda of the country in the broad fields of science and engineering, mainly through the provision of state-of-the-art high performance computing infrastructure and human capital interventions.
Through the SKA, Africa is attracting young people to science and technology, and creating a critical mass of skills. This will be useful in developing the knowledge economy, as well as in future infrastructure development across the continent.
Minister Pandor was speaking at the South African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference in the Western Cape this morning. The annual conference, hosted by Telkom, gives students doing master's and doctoral degrees in the areas of computer science and engineering an opportunity to present their research findings.
Minister Pandor said that government aimed to catalyse the development of an innovative, sustainable and indigenous information technology industry that addressed a significant portion of South Africa's information technology (IT) needs, as well as attracting investments from global IT corporations in research and development, as well as manufacturing facilities.
In the past three years the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has invested R62 million in information and communications technology (ICT) through the Industry Innovation Partnership Fund. The DST has also developed an ICT Research, Development and Innovation Strategy and Roadmap (2013) aimed at also increasing private and public investment in ICT research, development and innovation.
The Minister called on Africa to grow young scientists and entrepreneurs who could develop new technologies and innovative solutions for pressing problems faced by the continent.
"As Africans we must position ourselves to compete with the rest of the world. As Africans we must foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly among our youth," said the Minister.
The Minister said that, although Africa was the second fastest-growing region in the world, with seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world, this growth could only be sustained by supporting innovation.
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