M Mangena: CSIR Excellence Awards

4 October 2006

Members of the CSIR Board of Directors,
President of the CSIR, Dr Sibusiso Sibisi,
Scientists, engineers, researchers,
Developers and innovators,
Ladies and gentlemen:

Today we recognise and celebrate those who have gone out of their way to
achieve outstanding results in their quest for excellence. This is a major
staff event in the CSIR annual calendar.

The event provides an excellent opportunity for sharing with you some of the
challenges we face and how you can in the spirit of excellence provide
innovations to improve the quality of the life of South Africans.

Werner v Brown, the pioneer of space flight claims, "Research is what I'm
doing when I don't know what I am doing." The salient point of his assertion is
that we can have the best infrastructure, state of the art technology, strong
vision, mission, strategies and viable business plans but without people who
know what they are doing and where they want to go all will be in vain. We need
inquiring minds that seek to do and achieve the impossible.

We fully support the CSIR Excellence Awards as they recognise and appreciate
the excellent performance and hard work done by the women and men of this
institution.

Our country faces many challenges which include, among many others, poverty,
a shortage of appropriate infrastructure and high tech skills. While South
Africa is advanced in certain technological domains, she is still far behind in
others. A typical example is provided by the coal-to-fuel and gas-to-liquid
technologies of Sasol, technologies that are now globally acclaimed especially
given the current spiralling prices of crude oil.

But ironically, we continue to import most of our industrial and food
processing equipment, textiles and electronic products not to mention the
finished goods made from many of our natural resources.

Countries that have been able to breakaway from the shackles of
underdevelopment are those that have managed to develop thriving industries
around their key areas of competence. Most of them are countries that are today
at the forefront of the knowledge and information and communications technology
(ICT) driven economies. For many years in succession Sasol has been ranking
highest among companies investing heavily on research and development (R&D)
in South Africa. Some of its research has been undertaken by
state-owned-enterprises (SOEs) such as the CSIR or its subsidiaries. The time
has come for our scientists and researchers everywhere to collaborate
constructively to establish industries that can pool their resources and
expertise to create uniquely South African knowledge-driven industries capable
of holding their own in dictating global economic agenda in certain areas.

As a country we are striving towards higher economic growth levels by
investing in infrastructure. My Department has established programmes that
support Human capacity building in science, engineering and technology. The
Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy (AMTS), for example, aims to improve
competitiveness within the manufacturing sector, generally and high tech
manufacturing firms in particular. And the CSIR plays a key role in this
programme.

South Africa has world-class infrastructure in some domains and very
inhumane living conditions in others that impact negatively on the general
quality of life of our citizens. The CSIR has a particular mandate in this
regard and we have high expectations that it will sustain and grow our efforts
in this regard. Successes made in projects such as the digital doorway need to
be replicated in the domains of housing, education, sanitation, water and built
environment technologies and in the combat against disease. Addressing such
challenges should play a major role in informing policy formulation and
planning of the CSIR.

Our National Research Strategy (NRS) articulates the policy direction for
addressing the renewal of our engineering, scientific and technological
workforce. As yet we have not begun to do well in terms of mentoring and
transferring skills and expertise to the young generation to ensure we build a
very strong and solid foundation in this regard.

This problem is most pervasive in our higher education institutions. On the
contrary, in industry there exists a much more normal age distribution graph of
researchers and technologists. Research councils like CSIR straddle between
these extremes which means they can share with the universities what industry
requires and does. In this respect I commend the organisers of the CSIR
Excellence Awards for including a category for Promising Young Researchers.

I want to challenge Dr Sibisi and his colleagues to find more innovative
ways of transferring core science, engineering and technology skills to young
people to ensure we build a very strong research and innovation base for future
generations. We should aim at undertaking the research that is tailor-made for
use by both large and small industries and society at large.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may be wondering why I seem to preaching only
gloom and doom when this occasion is about fun and celebration. We need to
constantly refresh our minds about the difficulties confronting us now and
strive to determine the strategic direction we need to follow to succeed. The
CSIR is the flagship organisation geared towards deriving maximum benefit from
the human capital developed through our institutions of higher learning. The
organisation and its people play a seminal role in aligning our R&D
investments with the broader objectives of government.

My Department is committed to supporting R&D. As a result it is
important that the benefits and outcomes thereof, flow back into programmes
intended for the development of our citizens and communities. To achieve this
we need to pool the energies, drive and innovativeness of all sectors of our
population. In particular the inclusion of the disabled, women and blacks in
key activities should remain among your major priorities. Under the leadership
of the new chairperson of the CSIR Board, Ms Nobusi Shikwane, we hope the
organisation will strive for greater inclusion and transfer of core skills and
knowledge to our young men and women.

May I, in closing, take this opportunity to congratulate the winners and
thank all members of staff for their contribution to the advancement of the
CSIR. Today's winners join the group of previous winners. We have no doubt that
they too will continue the tradition of inspiring others to pursue excellence
in their respective areas of operation. It is only the pursuit of excellence
that will make South Africa reach and surpass other technologically advanced
countries.

George Elliot tells us that "Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of
winning", but a real hero is one "who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of
losing". In many areas government seems to be fighting a losing battle. It will
take all of us to intensify our fight in the face of all the odds facing us as
a nation. We are all capable of doing what we can with what we have, wherever
we are. I urge all staff members of this institution to do their best to uphold
the tradition of excellence of the CSIR begun more than sixty years ago.

I thank you!

Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
4 October 2006