Minister Naledi Pandor's speech at the Technology Top 100 business awards ceremony, Johannesburg Country Club, Napier Road, Auckland Park
This year we have continued to face an ever deepening economic crisis. We must now, more than ever, find more creative ways to boost growth in our economy.
The TT100 and other initiatives should be utilized to assist us in identifying strategies that will effectively respond to our challenges. One of the responses we should strengthen is a firm social contract between government, business, labour and our citizens.
Government has tabled several proposals. We heard yesterday in medium-term budget policy statement that government is determined to maintain fiscal discipline while ensuring we continue to invest in key programmes that will enhance growth and create a firm basis for increased economic inclusion and reduction of inequality.
One of the most significant announcements is the increase in funding to support poor academically able students. The determination of government to steer pursuit of the key goals of the National Development Plan and the Nine Point Plan that is meant to accelerate growth and development.
The Science and technology and innovation sector has huge potential to support growth and development. Business and government need to work together to increase South Africa's gross expenditure on research and development from the current 0,8% of GDP to 1,5% by 2019. While the target is ambitious, we must achieve it. The companies and business leaders we celebrate tonight should become our instruments for growing the contribution of innovation to South Africa.
Congratulations to all winners tonight. Allow me to reflect on a number of trends that have emerged from this year's programme.
Only a small percentage of research work is conducted offshore. This is encouraging but we must acknowledge that the organisations that entered the programme are small and medium sized businesses. It is widely believed that certain large South African organisations spend a high proportion of their research budget using offshore research bodies. We need to develop a fuller understanding of the reasons for this.
The large percentage of basic and base technologies is of concern. This must also be seen in the light of the low number of emerging technologies. The implication is that organisations are spending less time on developing new technologies and are holding on to established technologies.
The large number of global partners is a concern. There is limited local technology development taking place. There is an urgent need to create a mind-set that local technology is world class. Government procurement policies that favour local developments could provide support in catalysing a change in this landscape. Our most innovative companies should assist government to reflect on the negative impact of some policies and regulations.
As the Minister of Finance said yesterday, Africa is becoming a larger consumer of South African technology. However, the fact that 28% of the TT100 organisations do not export at all is a concern.
The large use of combined resources in the innovation landscape is encouraging. From a global perspective innovation is being managed by harnessing resources from several sources. Including customers and suppliers into the organisations’ innovation 'teams' is in line with global trends where partnering with the end user is deemed to be of importance.
Globally, organisations are finding creative ways to reward their employees for bringing new ideas into the offerings. The fact that over 25% of the TT100 respondents have no reward system, indicates that South African organisations are lagging behind global best practice. Rewards systems are an important driver for the creation of an innovation culture and more importantly are deliberately used for the attraction and retention of key personnel.
In spite of the above, it appears that there is a good balance in the way organisations drive their staff retention policies. From the adjudication interviews it is evident that organisations are placing more emphasis on staff retention and are becoming more concerned about retaining key skills particularly with attractive opportunities being made available to people from overseas organisations.
The fact that a third of the organisations are able to bring new innovations into full commercialisation within a period of six months is remarkable. The high percentage of organisations that are able to successfully commercialise new innovations in 6 to 12 months is also an encouraging trend.
Whilst environmental policies are more important to some industry sectors, the high-level of respondents who see no need for such an environmental programme should be of concern. Perhaps, there is a limited understanding of the very notion of environmental management. This area needs to be explored within the TT100 Forum.
The fact that over 50% of the organisations have intellectual property protection is an encouraging trend. It is encouraging to note the high level of organisations that believe that intellectual property protection is important. The real challenge is to encourage organisations to find ways of protecting their IP. From a DST perspective the harsh reality of the high costs of formal IP protection is an issue which is raised by many of the respondents.
The importance of internship was an element in theTT100 programme. But not this year it seems.
I think it's essential. In 2006 the DST introduced a DST-NRF internship programme. The internship programme places graduates (Bachelors, Hons, and Masters) in more than 70 host institutions comprising science councils, businesses and corporates, universities, and other national research facilities and laboratories, with the DST providing monthly stipends for a period of 12 months.
A number of workplace preparation programmes have since been added to the DST-NRF internship programme. In 2014/15, the DST committed more than R110 million supporting more than 1 300 interns, including support for the placement of Universities of Technology (UoT) students who need work experience to complete their degrees.
And the TT100 companies also hosted our interns. We need to expand such programmes. The TT100 programme is yet further evidence that we are an innovative African nation.
We are developing new markets for our products, especially on the African continent. Although there has been strong growth in the domestic consumer market, South Africa is a relatively small market, particularly when compared to its partners in BRICS, but the African continent offers immense opportunities for trade.
Africa has a billion people and is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. We are working to achieve greater economic integration and diversify the range of goods and services that we export.
Faster growth is essential if we are to realise the vision of sharing our country's wealth. But it is not sufficient. We need to ensure that growth is also inclusive. The benefits of growth need to be more equitably shared.
The most important instrument to achieve this is faster job creation. In our situation, where some sectors of the economy already provide decent jobs, we need to combine mass absorption into the labour market with a determination to protect and expand access to these decent jobs.
We have to promote and grow industries that are labour absorbing, such as mining, agriculture, construction, hospitality and small businesses. We also have to grow the more advanced sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing, financial services, tele-communications and business services.
A specific priority of the DST is reducing the technology balance of payments, either by reducing the amount of foreign technologies and/ or by increasing the level of South African technologies that can compete globally.
In most of the key and major flagship programmes supported by the DST - fuel cells, titanium metal powder, additive manufacturing, medical devices and pharmaceuticals, composites - the respective project teams are required to identify foreign partners that can add value.
Good progress has been made in securing suitable partners but the profile of partners still tends to be dominated by long-term traditional partners. To maximise the potential returns from these initiatives, the DST remains keen to interact with potential new partners that enable South Africa to secure new markets for our technological products.
TT100 is a very important affirmation of innovative business, I would like to wish you continued success in your endeavours. You should be proud of yourselves and your achievements.
