Honourable Chairperson;
Honourable Members;
Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Honourable Dr Blade Nzimande;
Members of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Science and Technology, led by Honourable Chairperson, Ms Nompendulo Mkhatshwa;
Director-General of the Department, Dr Phil Mjwara;
Chairpersons and CEOs of the entities;
Officials of the Department of Science and Innovation;
Ladies and Gentlemen:
One of the critical roles of the Department of Science and Innovation is anchoring science amongst the people, and making sure that science works for their development and for the economy.
Innovation in support of a capable state
In order to achieve our overarching goal of using science, technology and innovation to reconstruct and rebuild South Africa, we need a capable and responsive state. It is for this reason that we have adopted the District Development Model as a platform to enable innovation in districts and to deploy innovation and technology solutions to district and metropolitan municipalities.
In implementing this, we continue to prioritise women and young people. For example, young people from TVET colleges received training as part of the projects under the Hydrogen Society Roadmap that was launched earlier this year.
Another initiative is our Innovation for Service Delivery Programme. Through this Programme, we will demonstrate and pilot technologies and innovations to improve the delivery of basic services in municipalities, against the backdrop of the District Development Model.
More specifically, this programme will support the demonstration and adoption of technology solutions for improving access to quality basic services such as water, waste management, sanitation, and green and renewable energy solutions.
We take the pleasure of announcing that a project using ICT platforms for electronic participation in policy processes by young people will be piloted in five municipalities.
Science, technology and innovation to advance socio-economic transformation
It is our firm believe that we must deliberately use science, technology and innovation to advance socio-economic transformation and the development of previously marginalised indigenous knowledge forms.
Towards this end, the implementation of the Protection, Promotion, Development and Management of Indigenous Knowledge Act of 2019, also known as the IK Act, will lead to the development of new policy initiatives.
Related to this will be the development of regulations that will enable the implementation of the IK Act and the establishment of a special services delivery unit that will serve as the authority regulating the IK sector.
One of the most important developments in this regard is the setting up of institutional units for the recognition of prior learning in IK disciplines. This will be a novel contribution by our Department for developing the indigenous knowledge that resides outside the formal system of learning.
Further to this is the deployment of innovation infrastructure and innovation support of marginalised communities to increase innovation activities by locals to address context-specific local economic challenges.
One such intervention is our Living Labs. It pleases us to indicate that, by the end of 2021/22, five Living Labs had been funded in township and rural communities in KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape and the Free State, supporting over 200 young emerging innovators.
At least 1 000 young people will go through innovation support programmes, with varying numbers going through more advanced stages of the innovation support. They will gain ICT-related skills and receive support for innovations relevant in local contexts.
At the start of 2022/23, partnerships had been entered into to set up six additional labs, bringing the total number of labs that will be supported in this financial year to 11. We will be expanding this to the Northern Cape province.
Human capital development for young people
We regard human capital development and in particular the development of young scientists and researchers as essential to the effectiveness and growth of our national system of innovation.
Over a five-year period 2017/18 to 2021/22, we have awarded bursaries to more than 58 000 postgraduate students. This comprise 43 262 pipeline (honours/BTech and master's) postgraduate bursaries and 15 483 PhD bursaries.
In the 2021/22 financial year, a total of 4 995 graduates and students were placed in DSI-funded work preparation programmes, namely, the government's internship programme and youth volunteer programme.
A total of 18 746 researchers were funded through the NRF-managed programmes and 41 635 research articles were published by researchers awarded grants in the same period.
We continue implementing the new Postgraduate Funding Policy with more than 6 000 postgraduates (2 200 PhD and 4 200 pipeline) students targeted for support in the 2022/23 financial year. The Department intends to provide support to 3 000 researchers in 2022/23.
Young people as catalysts for science, innovation and technology
In line with our commitment to promote grass roots innovation, for the period under review, we have supported a number SMMEs that are owned by young black people. I wish to share two of these success stories with the Honourable Members. The first one is the story of two young black Mechanical Engineering graduates, Mogale Maleka and Tumelo Pule.
Under the auspices of the AB Farms, Maleka and Pule looked at a way to upscale the vertical piper system for small scale and commercial farming. They were able to successfully test the prototype and it is ready to commercialse the irrigation product.
These innovative youngsters are now working with UJ-PEETS on the second phase to develop an all energy-efficient solution and a more sustainable system with minimal cost and value for money during production.
The innovation out of Maleka and Pule's work is that it has the ability to store water within the design to reduce the amount of energy required to grow produce while simultaneously increasing the planting density per square metre, thus reducing costs and increasing production capacity.
The second success story is that of a young black woman called Dorcas Rathaba. As the Honourable Members may be aware, during the lockdown the rail industry suffered a lot of damage to infrastructure and trains.
Some of the issues that affected the trains was the theft of anything metal on parked trains. One of the items targeted were the electric cable connectors. As you know, electric cable connectors connect power cables between coaches.
In helping to solve this problem, Rathaba's company was investigating replacing steel cable connectors with alternative materials that will be of no value to the scrap metal industry. Her company was able to manufacture a functional prototype from a solid plastic material.
The prototype was handed to the client for testing and the next step will include investigating suitable flame-retardant plastic material to be used. The innovation output of Rathaba's work is that it enabled the machining of the main housing unit (cable connector) from a solid plastic block.
If her product gets buy-in from train operators, this idea has the potential to deter scrap metal thieves because of the reduced value of parts, as well as creating jobs when the product needs to be manufactured.
Enhancing public understanding of science, technology and innovation
For the period under review, through our brand campaign, we undertook a public communication drive to help the public understand how an enabling our national system of innovation can deliver solutions that address the country's socio-economic needs.
Our campaign focused on highlighting the fact that the investments we are making today provide the opportunity for a better future and that partnerships with the private sector and other key societal role players will enhance government's efforts to use innovation to improve the lives of our communities.
The specific areas that the campaign focused on included the need to enable viable and competitive industries and the need to modernise agriculture and mining, and the need to develop sustainable energy and use of research to support evidence-based decision-making within government.
As an example, we were able to demonstrate how the investments we made yesterday in research have enabled us to harness today's information to drive better decision-making during COVID-19.
For this financial period until 2024, our brand campaign will focus on building the DSI's reputation as an enabler that is transforming the national system of innovation.
Therefore, in our engagement with the public, we will be highlighting current and future benefits of the investments we are making in such critical areas as health innovations, digital economy innovations, circular economy actions and other key areas.
As part of our brand campaign, we will also seek to continue to profile our country as a leader in science, technology and innovation in Africa and further position it as an innovation destination, attracting investment and creating opportunities for South Africa to participate in the global arena.
In conclusion, Honourable Members, these are but some of the interventions that we made during the period under review. We, however, remain mindful of the fact that there is still a lot of work to be done in our efforts to rebuild and reconstruct our country.
Therefore, in the 2022/23 financial year, we will be seeking to accelerate the contribution of science, technology and innovation towards the project to reconstruct and rebuild our country.
Our efforts will therefore be geared towards addressing the national priorities of overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic; enabling a massive rollout of infrastructure and a substantial increase in local production; supporting the employment stimulus to create jobs and support livelihoods; and contributing to a rapid expansion of the country's energy generation capacity.
Thank you for your attention.
