Programme Director,

Management and Organisers of the ICT Africa Congress 2006,

ICT Executives and Managers from Various Sectors of our Economy,

Esteemed speakers, panellists and exhibitors,

Government Department Representatives,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A few days ago, a friend brought to my attention a somewhat interesting phenomenon about the 21^st century. Quoting Bruce Melhman, Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy at the US Department of Commerce at the occasion of the ICT Literacy Summit, he told how “ICT’s are changing everything, transforming organizations and redefining the skills and talents needed to succeed in the 21st century.”

At individual level he said, “The ability to understand and make use of ICT - digital literacy - is proving essential to employment success, civic participation, accessing entertainment, and education - it is truly revolutionizing how we work, live, play and learn”.

Programme Director, ladies and gentlemen, some of the realities we face as a country with regards to ICT include:

Limited basic and advanced skills in ICT;

Low levels of ICT R&D investment. South Africa invests only 10,5%, in comparison with leading OECD countries which spend about 30% of their expenditure on ICT R&D; and

Lack of a critical mass of high quality research to enhance innovation and grow our economy.

In his state of the nation address four years ago, President Thabo Mbeki identified the optimum utilisation of ICT as a critical and pervasive element in modern economic development. ICT is a key technological platform which has enormous impact on government service delivery and industrial and economic development. Developments in information communication technologies continue to inform government strategies, policy and legislative frameworks aimed at facilitating economic growth and improving the quality of life of our citizens. They also have the potential to profoundly change the way business is conducted globally.

Our National Research and Development Strategy sets the agenda for optimising the contribution of science and technology in the development agenda of South Africa. The strategy identifies ICT as a core technology mission towards the achievement of this objective.

To keep abreast of change, and to improve South Africa’s competitiveness in such a dynamic environment, through the envisaged National ICT and R&D Strategy, my department is proposing a number of interventions to optimise conditions for the creation and commercialisation of technology. Specifically, the strategy promotes innovation, support for entrepreneurship, improvement of infrastructure, the empowerment of people through world class research, the creation of robust innovation chains and Human Capital Development. Our vision for ICT in 2015 expressed in this strategy to create “an inclusive knowledge society where ICT-based innovation flourishes”.

On another level, through programmes such as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA) and the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA), government intends to strengthen the first economy and uplift the second economy to competitive levels. Indeed both these initiatives identify ICT as key to achieving developmental goals. AsgiSA, for example, has electronic communication as one focus area. JIPSA, on the other hand, seeks to find solutions for dealing with skills shortages in critical areas like ICT.

On the issue of skills, it is imperative to ensure rapid absorption of the marginalised groups in to our ICT skills development plans. These groups include the youth, people with disabilities and women, particularly those in rural areas, and Blacks.

Ladies and gentlemen, in taking forward the objectives of the ICT R&D and Innovation Strategy, and in support of these major government initiatives, the Department of Science and Technology has embarked on a number of strategic interventions that seek to address most of the issues already alluded to. These we will accomplish, of course, in collaboration with other cluster departments, the Meraka Institute, otherwise known as the African Advanced Institute for Information and Communication Technology (AAICT), Higher Education Institutions, Science Councils and other role players in our national system of innovation.

In order to facilitate the achievement of a critical mass research capability in ICT, my department, together with the Meraka Institute, is implementing a number of flagship projects in identified ICT domains such as Mobile, Wireless and Satellite Technologies, Geomatics and Spatial Technologies, as well as ICT in Education.

In the mobile and wireless technology front, world class research and innovation is ongoing in the area of wireless mesh networks. As I am speaking, a number of pilot projects are being implemented in selected townships and rural areas. While advancing research and innovation, these projects also seek to provide alternative and cost-effective last mile connectivity to under-serviced and rural areas. This project has also taken on board a mixture of young, vibrant ICT developers and advanced researchers who are pursuing their Masters and PhD programmes.

Within the ICT in Education space, advanced research is being carried out to develop innovative solutions that will help not only to expose our younger generation to ICTs, but also harness ICTs as tools to advance teaching and learning in our schools.

The need for world class ICT infrastructure, otherwise known as cyber-infrastructure, is equally important and thus receives high priority in our plans. To this end, my department is in the process of implementing a Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC). The CHPC will not only provide supercomputing power in several teraflops, but will also provide storage capacity measured in tens to hundreds of terabytes.

The South African National Research Network (SANReN) is another momentous e-infrastructure initiative running parallel with the CPHC. SANReN is the high speed network that is destined to inter-connect research councils, other research institutes within statutory bodies and government departments and universities. Over and above the national interconnection, SANReN will connect all these centres at high speed to global research networks via connections to Géant in Europe, and possibly to Internet2’s Abilene network in the US. The potential capabilities of SANReN can at best be termed enormous.

In pursuit of excellence in world class science, engineering and technology research, these two key cyber- infrastructure undertakings, i.e. the CPHC and SANReN, will operate in tandem to provide computational power and high bandwidth interconnection in support of other science and engineering branches such as molecular biology, medical and health science, astronomy, astrophysics, bioinformatics, and advanced manufacturing, to mention but just a few.

This is now possible, thanks to the true nature of ICT as a multi-disciplinary and cross-cutting technology platform. To illustrate this, SANReN will have the capacity to connect Hartebeeshoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) to other participants of the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) elsewhere in the world at initially 1Gigabits per second (1Gb/s), and later at 10Gb/s or more to the processing centre in Netherlands via Géant.

Ladies and gentlemen, in September we made a pleasing announcement that South Africa has been short-listed, alongside Australia, as the preferred bidder to host the internationally acclaimed Square Kilometre Array Telescope, or SKA as it is commonly known. The SKA will be the largest radio telescope ever built in the world.

As a dry run and precursor to the SKA, plans are afoot to design and build a world-class cutting-edge 1% capability of the SKA, the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT).

These massive advances and developments in science and technology will certainly provide an enabling environment for attainment of global leadership in key scientific and technological domains.

In line with the potential outcomes on the intended ICT R&D and Innovation Strategy, these developments will promote the advancement of multi-disciplinary technologies, skills and methodologies that are aimed at eradicating poverty, ensuring a growing, innovative and competitive indigenous ICT Sector, as well as the smart proliferation of ICT’s within other sectors of the economy. Of more significance to us in this regard is the harnessing of ICT R&D and innovation to support major e-government initiatives, and thus enhance service delivery. It is important to note that my department is actively involved in these activities through the utilisation of our R&D and innovation instruments such as the Innovation Fund and the National Research Foundation (NRF).

As government, we can only do so much in this field. What is required, under the circumstances, is to secure buy-in from higher education institutions and industry. The growing level of interest in the concept of technology platforms is a hopeful sign. What is also needed are private-public partnership models to bring South Africa more to the vanguard of ICT R&D and innovation. It is therefore essential to create the right conditions for the private sector to make substantial commitments to short-term and long-term strategic research in ICTs in South Africa.

While electronic communication, network bandwidth and computing resources are a necessary infrastructure to address the digital divide, broadband connectivity remain the single most critical component to provide the much needed true Internet access.

For years Africa has been lacking in ICT adoption and development compared to other developing regions of the world. Although the overall gap between developing and developed countries is still wide in relation to internet usage, as shown by the Information Economy Report 2005 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), 1.1% of the African population had access to the internet in 2003, compared to 55.7% in North America. However, Africa has shown a significant growth rate of 56% in terms of the number of people accessing the Internet since the turn of the millennium. The UNCTD Report further shows that mobile communication penetration is growing faster in developing regions as compared to developed ones, with Africa and East Asia being at the forefront.

Given this state of affairs, the challenge to the ICT industry is to find innovative ways and means to capitalise on the explosion of the mobile telecommunication market in Africa. This calls for mobile phone based solutions that can address many of the Information Society challenges. Current trends show that cellular phones can be optimally utilised as alternative service delivery channels for e-government, e-health, e-education and e-business.

Notwithstanding the countless benefits that the Internet can provide, it is imperative to note that the Internet itself presents many challenges with regards to security. Due to its open nature, the Internet is also a platform for unscrupulous activities such as cyber-fraud and transmission and delivery of obscene content, which perpetually puts business and individuals at high risks. Government is also not immune to this undesirable reality. The need for robust, cutting-edge information security systems is therefore critical for securing our government systems.

We are encouraged by the fact that this congress has identified ICT security, risk management, governance and infrastructure development as some of the thematic streams for this conference. Let me then implore you to double your efforts in making sure that as a continent, we are on par with the rest of the world in continuously engaging in research and development, so that the security of our online environment is strengthened more than ever before, that as individuals, as nations, as a continent, and indeed as part of the global society, we can reap the benefits of using internet and ICT in our daily endeavours. More importantly, we need to ensure that the impressionable minds of our children benefit from the positive aspects of ICTs without being exposed to malevolent content such as pornography and violence.

May I, in closing convey my Ministry’s commitment and support for initiatives such as this conference. In line with our strategy, we urge you to look beyond the confines of our region and aim to become a significant global ICT player.

There is an old adage that a half-empty glass is as good as a half-full one. Both descriptions are statistically and scientifically accurate and true. However, the difference is that the former is backward-looking and pessimistic while the latter is forward-looking and optimistic. In the words of Tim Kelly, “the same is true of the phrases ‘digital divide’ and ‘digital opportunity’. The latter looks good as it will more likely attract investors, and is more in line with what is happening in Africa.

Finally, I wish to take this opportunity to welcome you all to this all important inaugural ICT Africa Congress 2006, and wish you well in your deliberations and debates during the rest of the conference. I strongly believe you will leave this conference with renewed energy to take forward the mammoth task of ensuring that ICTs do indeed play a significant role in our global fight against poverty and ignorance. Let us turn Africa’s “digital divide” into “digital opportunities”.

I thank you.