Speech by the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor MP, at the opening of the Cape Town science centre auditorium, Mowbray, Cape Town
Julie Cleverdon, Director, Cape Town Science Centre
Robert Enslin, SAP Executive Board member, President of Global Customer Operations
Shaun Pather, associated professor of Informatics at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Richard Hurst, senior analyst, Ovum
Distinguished guests
It’s a pleasure to be here this morning.
I must congratulate SAP and the Cape Town Science Centre for choosing to open this auditorium during our National Science Week. National Science Week is the DST's main science awareness activity and there are impressive science activities on display here and at the 33 other science centres across the land. The 2015 science week theme is “Light and light-based technologies”. For South Africans light and light-based technologies primarily means research into lasers and the CSIR's development of the first digital laser in the world.
The development of the digital laser opened up a whole new world of opportunities. We haven’t begin to tap the list of its uses and applications. Its important that new technologies improve lives, and help us address some of the many challenges we face as a country – this could be through skills development and ultimately job creation. We are immensely proud of the CSIR's achievements. With the 21st century being seen as the century of the photon, and the laser as a key enabling technology in the photonics revolution, the CSIR has secured a place for South Africa right at the forefront of developments in laser research.
In this context of path-breaking developments in world science, science centres play an important role in strengthening our science and technology culture, not only in South Africa, but also in Africa as a whole.
Africa is the second-fastest growing region in the world, with seven of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world. But is this science-led growth? If it's not, it's unsustainable. This growth can only be sustained through science and ensuring that young African scientists addresses the global challenges Africa faces.
Last week Africa was enthralled by President Obama's visit to Kenya and Ethiopia and by his identification as an African and by his call to invest in African youth. "But, ultimately, the most powerful antidote to the old ways of doing things is this new generation of African youth", he said in his hour-long speech to the African Union.
"History shows that the nations that do best are the ones that invest in the education of their people. You see, in this information age, jobs can flow anywhere, and they typically will flow to where workers are literate and highly skilled and online. And Africa’s young people are ready to compete. I've met them -- they are hungry, they are eager. They’re willing to work hard. So we've got to invest in them. As Africa invests in education, our entrepreneurship programs are helping innovators start new businesses and create jobs right here in Africa. And the men and women in our Young African Leaders Initiative today will be the leaders who can transform business and civil society and governments tomorrow."
Africa’s drive and hunger for science and innovation will change the world beyond Africa, because out of it will come a new way of thinking about the world, about life, and about technology. Africa’s socio-economic evolution will challenge conventional assumptions about every compartment of human activity.
As Africans, we must develop solutions to address our own unique challenges. As Africans we must position ourselves to compete globally with the rest of the world. As Africans we must foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly among our youth.
Who better than the youth to take advantage of the unprecedented growth in many technology sectors – in particular in mobile and information and communication technology? Who better than the youth? As one famous tech entrepreneur said: "no-one old ever invented anything on the Internet".
This is why science centres like this one are so important. We have policies in place, through our ‘Youth into Science’ programme, to establish science centres throughout South Africa.
We have already achieved some success in that 34 science centres have been established in eight provinces, and more are planned.
We have also created an efficient agency, the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA), to implement the policies of the department, and to carry out science awareness programmes of their own.
The methods used by interactive science centres exactly match Africa’s developmental needs: they offer cost-effective ways of strengthening our science and technology culture, and their relatively language-free exhibits, and hands-on, experiential teaching methods, are ideally suited to multi-cultural, multi-lingual societies with educational imbalances, such as we have in Africa.
Furthermore, the interactive displays and people-centred learning programmes in science centres are designed to have a wide range of access points, and therefore cater for children, and adults, with different levels of skills and knowledge.
Science centres are also capable of developing very effective outreach programmes that extend into the deepest peri-urban and rural communities where they can offer their valuable services.
Of course, our collaboration with the national and regional education departments in this endeavour is crucial.
My department has signed a co-operation agreement with the national Department of Education that clearly spells out our separate and joint responsibilities in promoting non-formal as well as formal education in science and technology in all the provinces.
We also value the role that science centres play in teacher empowerment and in training mathematics, science and technology teachers on the best ways to bring their subjects to life in the classroom. Science centres can also play a major role in encouraging the youth to follow careers in science and technology, and to know which career path would suit them best.
Corporate social investment is also of immense importance. SAP's substantial investment in infra-structure like the auditorium as well as their annual support for robotics competitions is much appreciated. The efforts of individual companies cannot achieve as much as that of a well conceived partnership between various stakeholders. The support provided to the science centre provides the foundation for many thousands of learners and members of the general public to benefit in the future.
The future for our country and the African continent depends on our development of talented scientists and entrepreneurs working in scarce skills fields who can take up the opportunity to develop new technologies and innovative solutions for our pressing problems.
We are aggressively investing in the capacity to create and diffuse new knowledge. Following global trends, we are investing in the modernisation of research and development infrastructure, and in particular, new instruments and facilities (like the Centre for High Performance Computing, and SKA) as key components in the drive to ensure that there is the requisite capacity to generate new knowledge.
Science centres are one of the most effective means available to help our youth reach their full potential in an informal learning environment. There is no doubt that a network of science centre would unleash the potential of millions of young African people, and promote science awareness on a continent that is rapidly embracing the digital age.
I thank you.
