Opinion ...
Knowledge economy initiatives - is South Africa on board?
 Dr Neville R Comins, CEO
The Innovation Hub
Management Company (Pty) Ltd
In today's knowledge-driven economy countries can no longer depend on natural resources alone to be globally competitive. Rather, the knowledge and resourcefulness of its people and its rate of innovation as a fundamental source of economic growth is what sets a country apart.
Knowledge has become a precious asset for companies, individuals and societies. To optimise the value of such an asset, nothing is more important than creating, disseminating and transforming it into an effective development tool. Developed and developing countries alike are vying to increase their participation in knowledge economy initiatives, such as the global phenomena of technopreneurship and knowledge generating Science Parks.
Effectively developing technopreneurs means combining research talent, management skills, new business concepts and venture capital to create commercially successful technological innovations. And where such development has been located within supportive environments like Science Parks, countries have been reaping the benefits.
The 1 500 Science Parks world-wide have reshaped the communities in which they operate by creating technology clusters that stimulate innovation and encourage collaboration. From relatively small and localised beginnings in the 1960s, Science Parks have evolved from merely offering real estate infrastructure to creating environments that provide significant value-addition.
At their very essence, these developments facilitate the flow of knowledge and drive the development of intellectual property to open up competitive new market sectors. This makes them excellent breeding grounds for technopreneurs, and the combination bodes well for effectively responding to the challenges in the coming decades when intellectual property will be as fundamental to competitiveness as innovation is to defining economic growth.
The establishment of 22 Science Parks in Finland was fundamental to its redevelopment in the 1990s, while the increasing rate at which high-tech activities are being developed in Singapore is linked to the development of six Science Parks. And in India, China, Brazil and the Balkans, developments have been clustered in regions with Science Park elements.
Unlike most countries with South Africa's level of development, this concept has not really become part of our technology and business landscape, and we are far behind in using such initiatives to stimulate the growth of our technology-based sectors. A step in the right direction has been the establishment by the Gauteng Provincial Government, through Blue IQ, of The Innovation Hub. Built on extensive international learning and benchmarking, the local development has been awarded full membership of the International Association of Science Parks (IASP), the first in Africa.
And line with the trend in the last decade to include incubators on Science Parks, one of the first high-tech incubators is part of the local development. It is well known that in the US high-tech start-ups have contributed disproportionately to the growth of jobs and the economy.
It is time for South Africa to show its abilities as an innovative nation if we are to take our rightful place in the global economy. It is time for us to embrace, support and replicate, as an integral part of our technology and business landscape, new economy initiatives that have, and continue to, contribute significantly to economic growth in the rest of the world.
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