A TT100 Council for the management of innovation and technology has been established as a brains trust for the industry. Comprised of a select group of business professionals, captains of industry and Government officials, the Council aims to create an effective partnership between Government and the private sector.
The Technology Council will be facilitated by Da Vinci with the specific objective of creating a forum for high-level strategic discussions on the challenges and opportunities facing organisations in their quest to be more competitive. According to the chairman of The Da Vinci Institute, Professor Roy Marcus, the accent will be on the extraction of the lessons learned and the translation of these into South African case studies. “At the end of the day Da Vinci wants to inspire its graduates to use these learnings to make a meaningful contribution to their work place and to demonstrate that as South Africans we have nothing to be ashamed of.”
The Council will meet between three and six times per annum to enable high level discussion and debate around innovation, developing innovation in South Africa and in order to create a relevant measurement index.
The goal of the Technology Top 100 Awards (TT100) has been to draw attention to the importance of developing a local culture of technological innovation and excellence. Since its launch in 1991, the programme has been strongly endorsed by Government through the Department of Science and Technology and aligned with its National System of Innovation (NSI).
The concept of a NSI, which encompasses an understanding of the interaction between a nation’s
science and technology base and its socio-economic system, is not a new one internationally. In South Africa the NSI concept was introduced and adopted by Government though the Department of Science and Technology’s planning processes. Accepting that innovation is fundamental to economic growth, Government defines innovation as the total process of taking a good idea and converting it into a product, process or system which has either commercial or social value.
The TT100 programme has evolved in both content and reach over the past 10 years. In order to grow its goal of promoting a South African culture of excellence in innovation thereby encouraging the growth of the country’s economy and significantly contributing to nation building, public-private partnerships are being encouraged in order to further the aims of the National System of Innovation.
The Technology Council, consisting of Supporters of SA Innovation, aims to combine the concept of recognition and reward with that of education and stewardship. More than merely making a financial contribution, Supporters of SA Innovation also provide mentorship, inspiration, guidance, evaluation and monitoring. In other words, they play an important role in both education and developing up and coming business innovators.
“South Africa has an untapped source of young, creative and potentially talented entrepreneurs who do not have access to costly higher education, without which they cannot embark on the challenging and rewarding journey that creates South African leaders in innovation,” explains Marcus. “Our philosophy is that technology and innovative thinking will ultimately
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