Information blackout frustrates young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas
Just what strategies does South Africa need to adopt to unlock innovation and entrepreneurship among its youth?
This critical question was explored at BackChat: Conversations for a Better South Africa, a colloquium in which Deputy Minister for Planning and Monitoring in the Presidency Buti Manamela sat down with a group of youthful entrepreneurs and state officials.
Manamela set the ball rolling by saying he sought a discussion that looked holistically at deterrents to youth innovation and entrepreneurship.
“We assume the challenge is funding while that’s not the only challenge,” he said.
It was worrying that while there were about 80 million gadgets in the country, “but local manufacturing is zero”, Manamela said, nudging the youth in attendance towards thinking of ways to address such shortcomings.
For starters, exorbitant data costs played a significant role in stifling innovation among the country’s youth, said Khethi Ngwenya, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from Soweto.
“If young people had more access to the internet they can be more innovative,” he said.
“I think government needs to have a conversation with telecoms [about the] cost of data and phone calls.”
Leaving aside the obstacles caused by expensive data, an information blackout by state agencies frustrated young innovators, said Zuko Godlimpi.
An official at the Ekurhuleni metro, Godlimpi was part of a Department of Trade and Industry team that created the black industrialists’ policy.
“There’s no corridor of information and support [for youth],” he said.
“There was a lady who came [to Gauteng]. She had a skincare product made from some clay that we have in Pon- doland,” Godlimpi said.
“She took a flight [to Gauteng from Bizana, Eastern Cape], only for us to tell her ‘no, not all of your papers that we needed are here’. She had to fly back again.
“The problem is that it doesn’t matter how innovative you are, but if you’re not in Gauteng the odds are highly against you.”
There was clearly a need to decentralise funding institutions “so that they connect to the people on the ground”, said Godlimpi.
Many other issues were tackled at BackChat, and there was consensus that the education system in the country was also problematic. It appeared the curriculum focused on creating employees and consumers, instead of entrepreneurs.
Manamela rounded off BackChat by saying ideas from engagements like it should find a way of influencing policy.
The ideas should also “inspire young South Africans out there to be able to do something within their own spaces”.
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