Gauteng Business 2016 edition

PROFILE

PROFILE Gauteng ICT Park Special Economic Zone As we seek solutions to bridge the digital divide in Africa, provincial government will play an important role in providing digital platforms to help unlock new economic opportunities for growth and development. Gauteng ICT Park SEZ The ICT SEZ is an instrument available for the Gauteng Province to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Direct Domestic Investment (DDI) to a dedicated industrial park (NASREC) using meaningful incentive packages from National Treasury (through agencies such as the GGDA), the Department of Telecoms & Postal Services, SARS, Municipalities and other relevant institutions. It aims to provide world class economic infrastructure and facilities to investors through: offering competitive incentive packages to attract and retain investments; developing and providing required ICT skills to investor businesses, shortening the processes of business registration, permitting and settling of investors. ICT and Gauteng The technology explosion of the 21st century also introduced the world to the digital economy. Where just a few years ago this concept was hardly known to those outside the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, we are today fully submerged in the information age—and equitable access to broadband has become a basic human freedom, which must be guaranteed to all, in an age where connectivity has become a utility that can measure the quality of life, human progress and economic development. As the pressure on the South African Government increases to bridge the digital divide and take technology to the people in even the most remote areas of the country, the ICT sector is blooming, and is increasingly contributing to the country’s GDP. In Gauteng, where nearly two thirds of all South African ICT companies are locat ed, ICT contributes more than 6% to regional GDP. A sure step in the right direction in modernising the public service and stimulating the province’s knowledge-based economy, was last year’s inaugural Gauteng ICT Summit, which highlighted the province’s goal of GAUTENG BUSINESS 2016 70

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 71 GAUTENG BUSINESS 2016