Gauteng Business 2016 edition

PROFILE
100% broadband connectivity in the Gauteng City
Region (GCR) by 2020.
During his keynote address at the summit, the
Minister in the Presidency, Mr Jeff Radebe, commended
the Gauteng province for taking the initiative
to be the first province to introduce tablets in all
high schools with the aim of taking public schools
into the 21st century. He said ICT is considered by
the National Development Plan as critical to the
attainments of its goals of economic growth and
improved the provision of services. “This is what I
call leadership and this can only be expected from a
province such as Gauteng, our economic heartland,”
said Radebe.
At the same event, Gauteng Premier, David Makhura,
urged the private sector to train more young people
to take up jobs and other economic opportunities
within the ICT space and partner with Government
to achieve the province’s ICT goals. He said, aligned
with this, the Gauteng Provincial Government has
adopted a five-pillar strategy “to transform Gauteng
into a ‘Smart Province’ and a Connected Global City
Region”.
Through this strategy the GCR will seek to:
• Build an enabling broad-band infrastructure for
a connected government.
• Create an enabling platform to deliver e-government
services.
• Establish a Gauteng City Region structure to coordinate,
standardise, regulate and prioritise the
implementation of our e-government initiatives.
• Promote the use of e-government services across
the board—by government, citizens and the
private sector.
• Stimulate the ICT economy by encouraging
public, private partnerships for the development
and roll-out e-government services.
ICT presence in Gauteng
Being the digital hub in the country, a range of ICT
activities is undertaken within the province, including
hardware manufacturing and software design,
and various service offerings such as software management,
systems programming and technical support.
A number of international giants, including
Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, ICL, Cisco and
Unisys, have a strong presence in Gauteng, where
they operate alongside South Africa’s own ICT firms.
With a view to drive growth within the ICT sector,
the Gauteng Provincial Government has introduced
a programme that provides mentoring support and
venture capital for the commercialisation of technology
firms. The provincial government has also established
a science park in the form of The Innovation
Hub (TIH). The City of Tshwane has an Innovation
Office based at TIH. The metropolitan municipality
already has a fibre optic network infrastructure that
hosts two technology-related projects, TIH and ASP.
Innovation in the sector will be further encouraged
by the newly established mLab, a centre designed
to support entrepreneurs in the mobile-technology
field. The CSIR in Pretoria hosts the mLab facility
together with TIH. At a national level, the National
Treasury has introduced the South African Vanguard
of Technology (Savant) programme in order to provide
marketing support to the South African ICT and
electronics sector and improve the level of awareness
of the local sector.
ICT Development Strategy
Showcasing its commitment to the development
of the digital economy, is the impressive 45-page
Gauteng ICT Development Strategy, providing a plan
and platform to unlock new economic opportunities
for growth and development.
According to the strategy, the New Growth Path
has identified rapidly extending access to, and use
of, ICT based on a continual and rapid reduction in
broadband costs, as part of the technology policy.
In this light, the Gauteng ICT Development Strategy
aims to foster realisation of the potential value that
information and communications technology
can bring to employment, growth and economic
development in Gauteng. It derives its foundations
from the Gauteng Employment, Growth and
Development Strategy, which focuses on the need
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