Now it is time to take it one step further. By creating an ICT incubator we can use economies of scale to help these startups get their products designed and developed for less, get to market easier, etc. Collective design, manufacturing, procurement, marketing, and admin makes great economical sense.

Combining this with the idea of actually establishing an ICT nucleus of excellence in the region means it not only makes economical sense, it now also makes sense from a training and sustainability level. The region has the experts to do the training, a large student base to be trained, and the enablers to facilitate, fund, employ and grow the ICT startups that pass through the incubator’s doors.

The idea is rather simple, and as follows:

• Create a facility where ICT players can share space, equipment and knowledge.
• Appoint a board of visionaries and industry to leaders to oversee the process.
• Provide mentorship to help these startups grow and prosper.
• Identify and train new members form the local communities.
• The partners provide projects which not only fund the training, it allows the trainees to actually become strartups themselves, by delivering real services back to the funders.

A simplistic example would be as follows

• The George municipality wants to make it easier for SMME’s to do business with local government.
• The ICT incubator identifies and scopes the project and  identifies one or more potential entrepreneurs or an existing startup.
• The entrepreneur develops a solution (a straight forward web database in this case) with the support and mentorship of the ICT incubator.
• Once the system is completed the  entrepreneur ends up running the project as his own long term startup.

• Local government wins, it gets a service and it creates a new skilled job at the same time.
• The entrepreneur wins, as he/she now has a viable business model, backed by a group of business and technical mentors.
• The region wins as the the local ICT skills base is increased, more jobs are created and work stays within the region.

We have  the infrastructure, the people, political will and the ability to make it happen.

The Bandwidth Barn in Cape Town is a successful model that can be adapted for our regional situation.

Already on Board

The following partners have already indicated there willingness to support this initiative:

• SEDA is well positioned to assist the incubator with mentoring, funding and partnership initiation. SEDA has the experience of getting several incubators off the ground at a national level, and have shown keen willingness to be part of this process.

• George Municipality is aiming to get George marketed as a business investment destination. The municipality’s LED department is ready to get involved in this incubator, and will be a key enabler.

• The George Chamber of Business understands the importance of repositioning the region as a business investment destination.  It is already facilitating meetings between government and local business to make this happen.

• The Garden Route IT Consortium is leading the way in bringing the local IT industry together and joining forces with local, regional and provincial government to market the region as a technology destination. The IT Consortium is  attracting new technology business to the region by allowing multiple local companies to pitch for national business as a cohesive unit.

• Digital Village is creating the next generation wireless backbone that will service the entire region and enable innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish.  As a non profit section 21 company it is already connecting the region’s schools and communities to the Garden Route’s ever growing wireless network.

• Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) is not only able to supply potential recruits, but also strong mentoring and support. NMMU is committed to growing the region as an educational centre, which strengthens the potential recruitment base.

Other potential key players

• The LED department of Eden district Municipality will be able to assist on a regional level, ensuring training and empowerment happens at a larger scale.

• Western Cape Provincial Government‘s Economic Development department  is already working with the Garden Route IT Consortium to explore various initiatives that will promote and strengthen the region’s technology focus.

• The newly formed Economic Development Agency is tasked with re-aligning the Western Cape’s business landscape. The Garden Route has been neglected to date, now is the time to bring much needed energy and vision to the region.

• The Department of Science and Technology has a key role to play in economic development and regional and national competitiveness.

Update: Had further discussions with various parties, including MEC Winde from WC Govt, Prof Fabricius from NMMU, Paul Hoffman from SEDA, Carli Venter from George LED.
Now have real momentum and real backing. This is our chance to make a real, meaningful and permanent difference to the business landscape in George.

How can this ever widening gap be brought back under control?  Why should we even care?  What has this got to do with ICT?

South Africa is compromised of large multinationals, corporations, SMME’s and countless formal and informal entrepreneurs.  It is especially the last category that is found predominantly in the rural areas. This is not often out of choice, but due to necessity.

This large group of active contributors to the economy is still only the tip of the potential iceberg. Imagine if we can double, triple or even quadruple the number of active entrepreneurs in our rural landscape.

If we can somehow enable those that are willing but unable we can turn around unemployment in the most hopeless of places, our forgotten and often overlooked ‘platteland’.

Now where does ICT come into the mix? Often local suppliers of services (informal entrepreneurs) are overlooked simply because they are not aware of the opportunities that arise. Another hurdle is the red tape before one can even be considered to be fulfilling all the criteria of a service provider. There are countless others.

• Imagine if people in the middle of back and beyond could create products and offer services, and match these with people that actually wants or needs it.
• Imagine if we could harness the idle capacity of the rural workforce, and match it with the ever growing demands of the bigger world.
• Imagine if people could shrug of the cloud of despair and hopelessness and swap it for a feeling of optimism, knowing that they could make something, sell it, earn a living, or make a meaningful contribution in another way.

Sure, we can create databases, websites, wireless networks and all sorts, but how will this help the people that do not have an education, electricity, access to phones or transport? There are other big issues that are holding up progress, like alcohol addiction, drug addiction, lack of basic services, poor educational services, poor access to health services, etc.

How can ICT ever hope to make a difference in these people’s lives, let alone turn it around?

I do not have the answer yet, but want to find it. The journey to get to there will require lots and lots of research, experimentation, patience and determination.

The Garden Route is well suited to being the right location to get the ball rolling. We have all the ICT we could ever need, we have the rural landscape, the unemployed and the hopeless, the informal entrepreneurs and the people that can make the difference and possibly find a way to unlock the vast hidden potential.

The top industry sectors in the region has always been tourism and agriculture, with building and property development coming third. Recent economic changes has seen the building industry shrink, and the ongoing drought has made agriculture less sustainable. The economic profile of the region needs a change in order to sustain growth and employment.

Repositioning the region as a technology destination is not only a smart economic move, it is also the ideal move given all the region has going for itself already.

It has the infrastructure, the people, political will and the ability to make it happen.

Infrastructure

• Airport servicing all key centers, well established roads network
• Reliable power and other municipal services
• Fast and stable internet connectivity to other key centers
• Already well established Call Center industry

People

• Top class world experts in technology are already based in and operate from the region
• Lots of well educated and articulate matriculants and students are available locally, making it easy to recruit a high tech workforce
• Many highly skilled people have retired to the region, bringing with them a wealth of experience

Political Will

• Provincial government is adding its weight behind the various initiatives and creating the framework for economic development through technology.
• Regional government is willing and able to bring technology and innovation to the lives of all the region’s citizens.
• Local government is able to make it happen by creating the environment that makes technology investment more attractive.

Key Enablers

• The Garden Route IT Consortium is leading the way in bringing the local IT industry together and joining forces with local, regional and provincial government to market the region as a technology destination. The IT Consortium is also attracting new technology business to the region by allowing multiple local companies to pitch for national business as a cohesive unit.

• Digital Village is creating the next generation wireless backbone that will service the entire region and enable innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish. Digital Village is a non profit section 21 company and is already connecting the region’s schools and communities to the network, and the world.

• Western Cape Provincial Government‘s Economic Development department  is working closely with the Garden Route IT Consortium to explore various initiatives that will promote and strengthen the region’s technology focus.

• The Regional Innovation System is a Department of Science and Technology initiative. It brings businesses, institutions and government (Triple Helix)  together to jointly and individually play a part in promoting innovation processes within a province, and have a key role to play in economic development and regional and national competitiveness. In the Garden Route the Regional Innovation System has the backing of local government and local business, and is a key driver in redefining the technology destiny of the region.

A consortium of Garden Route based companies is ready to launch an IT technology hub in George which will create jobs and train up new skills.

George’s IT company owner Imel Rautenbach is currently drumming up support for the initiative at provincial and national level.  The consortium aims to use the Western Cape Province’s business arm to market and develop in order to get launched nationally and internationally. IT technology and electronic centred businesses will be the engine that will drive this local initiative. “The idea behind pooling resources and skills is to keep all our software and hardware developmental work in the Garden Route. We already have around 30 businesses on our data base that have all the necessary skills and technology to form the nucleus. “

“We plan to link up our efforts with that of the Province. By collectively marketing and taking on projects jointly we can land contracts which may otherwise have been outsourced to companies outside the region. With the skills data base we now have we can take on big contracts, and the risk of one small company folding, is eliminated because collectively we can pool our skills to ensure continuity” says Rautenbach who was recently elected the Vice President of the George Chamber of Business.

On www.gardenrouteconsortium.co.za you can read more about their quest to “Provide project management and quality control services during the full lifecycle of large and complex projects. To define, enable, and manage key technology growth areas in the region.”

Provincial government support

Rautenbach has just returned from a very successful round of meetings with Western Cape Government on how the IT Consortium can link in to and benefit from the Western Cape’s own IT strategy and marketing initiatives. Alan Winde, MEC for Finance and Tourism is very excited about the potential the consortium holds for the Garden Route region. He has committed to bringing a high powered delegation of provincial officials to the region to further explore this potential.

”This initiative fits perfectly with our own plans for the growing of the Technology industry within province”, said Jo-Anne Johnston, Western Cape’s Chief Director of Trade and Industry Development.  She has committed her department’s full support for the initiative and is exploring ways of bringing other government departments onboard as well.

Jenny McKinnel, Executive Director of the Cape IT Initiative (CITI), is equally excited. Citi is a non-profit organisation established in 1998 to develop and support the information and communications technology (ICT) cluster in the Western Cape. “CITI is keen to support the Garden Route IT Consortium as their goals are directly in line with our own”, said McKinnel.  CITI are going to be working together with the Garden Route IT Consortium to unlock government funding and help promote the region as an IT destination, especially focussing on the impressive line-up of currently supplied services and R&D projects the various consortium members are working on.

Research and Development

The Consortium also has a strong focus on Research and Development (R&D), with several innovations currently in the works. These includes projects like fridge magnets that will show the current water level in your rain tank, a stock theft project that tracks animal and vehicle movements on farms in real time and alerts the farmers the moment the animal’s movements indicates distress, as well as a project to track hikers in remote mountain hiking trails.

CITI’s McKinnel is putting her full support behind the formation of a new R&D Lab in the Garden Route, which will help accelerate these R&D ventures. The Western Cape Agriculture department has also been tasked to get involved in some of these projects. DTI and other government funding for R&D spending will be applied for to cover the lab setup and initial phases of some of these projects. Talks with the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) on how it can assist the consortium in its R&D and marketing initiatives is ongoing.

Wireless technology is ready to be unfolded

As part of the R&D venture a state of the art wireless network is being set up. This network will eventually cover the entire Garden Route but is currently being rolled out in the George area. The network uses the latest wireless technology which promises much faster speed than traditional networks.

The network will be non-commercial and completely free to join. The network will not supply internet access but rather will be a backbone for R&D projects and educational programs.  Through wireless technology business can monitor activities through CCTV camera link-ups and WEBCAMs. Regional weather and water consumption monitoring can be done for instance through wireless technology.  “The potential of the new network is limitless. With remote monitors farmers can even check-up on where their cattle is grazing, or see what vehicles are accessing their farms.” said an excited Rautenbach.

Western Province Government is busy drafting a policy on City based networks and will be liaising with the consortium to learn from the initiatives taken in the Garden Route.

Training
On of the consortium’s major aims is to boost education in the Southern Cape. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT University) in the USA, has made available to the consortium around 2000 online programs focussing on science and technology. These programs will be made available to local schools completely free of charge, once they have connected to the new network.  ”The beauty of this is that it is all so achievable. Video conferencing can be set up so that children in a small rural school can also listen to and view someone in the USA giving a lecture and so be brought into the world of science and technology.” Students can do courses as well through internet. Ms Johnston from Western Cape Government is currently exploring ways of unlocking government funding to get all the region’s schools connected to this initiative.

Virtual hub

“By creating a virtual hub, we want to create a momentum which will bring about enough technology based work here in George which will mean that those people who are currently commuting to bigger centres, and living in George, can in future work here as well.
“We are having a road show to launch the roll-out and we are pleased that Western Cape Finance and Tourism Minister Allan Winde’s revitalization programme happens to coincide and slot in with our initiatives, and we hope to tap into those being rolled out.”

For more info contact Imel Rautenbach on 044 802 0402 or visit the consortium website at www.gardenrouteconsortium.co.za or send an email to info@gardenrouteconsortium.co.za