Innovation to be boosted by a new mindset
of resources.
Every quarter, advertisements invite the province’s innovators to apply for funding. Usually, about 30 respond and about 10 make it on to the shortlist. Only about three qualify each year.
In Naidoo’s words: “Something is fundamentally wrong.”
If Smartxchange is to reach the two overarching goals outlined by Naidoo during his presentation – job creation and economic development – would-be small business owners have to learn to think innovatively.
Most ICT entrepreneurs work within the system rather than challenge it.
In the annual review distributed at the stakeholder breakfast, Naidoo noted: “Our 76 incubatees have produced excellent results in turnover, growth and job creation. Innovative solutions are constantly being commercialised as more SMMES gravitate from support services and resellers to innovators of disruptive solutions.
“Our SMMES are aware that they cannot contribute meaningfully to the innovation landscape if today’s projects are done using past methods and processes.
“There has to be ongoing innovation to develop and drive sustainable businesses.”
To plug the gap, Smartxchange has introduced a coaching mechanism that will attempt to teach its entrepreneurs to be disruptors.
Called “creative thinking”, this will encourage people to not only approach life problems creatively but also within what Naidoo called “a smart African city”. He said Smartxchange was looking to “our bright-eyed, bushy-tailed youngsters to come up with a solution.”
In the annual report, he said disruptive thinking was an enabler to innovation.
“We are excited about the future at Smartxchange, with the introduction of design thinking and the creation of a stimulating ecosystem that will further enhance disruptive thinking.
“The selection… of a smart city will see innovations focused on solutions that will contribute to a unique, exciting smart African city.”
ethekwini Municipality is prepared to consider pushing the boundaries.
Councillor Sipho Kaunda, who delivered a message on behalf of the mayor, said the municipality would continue to support Smartxchange because ICT was playing a significant role in the city’s economy.
He countered reservations that technological innovation and automation could destroy rather than create jobs.
It should be seen as an opportunity and a challenge, he said, adding that if one looked at apps, new technologies and logistics hubs in the city, it seemed information technology could create jobs – if nurtured.
Kaunda said the municipality wanted to see both opportunities and creative thinking extend to the least innovative environments within the metro, the townships.
He hoped to see more people living with disabilities enter and benefit from it. The only way to make disruption pay was to teach creative thinking and transform bright ideas into revenue generators.
Ishmael Mmbadi, the incubation manager of the Small Business Development Agency, which is the founding funder of Smartxchange, said the agency had realised it needed to take conventional incubation models a step further and would focus specifically on high-growth businesses.
It had identified science and technology and information technology as clusters it would foster and had taken a strategic decision to remodel projects within its 57 incubators.
Working within the ICT space, he said the agency had seen a need to incorporate disruptive innovation in the small business development space. “Creative destruction” was very much on the agenda.
He said that early last year, the agency had visited Europe to look at similar incubators and how they approached the problem of narrowing the gap between innovation and commercialisation. If that did not happen, companies in the incubation system could die, he warned.
Sibusiso Manana, the head of agriculture at the Technology Innovation Agency, told guests his organisation had launched a rapid-funding process.
The evaluation of funding applications could be fast-tracked within 24 hours and people would get funding the next day.
He said TIA saw that as part of creating a pipeline of evolving innovative projects.
Whereas most projects it backed were ready to go to market and benefited from conventional funding, many were at the prototype stage and a more rapid injection of finance would take them to that point.
German Professor Nik Eberl launched his book Disruptive Innovation at the breakfast. He based it on the izicwe code, which was applied by King Shaka.
“King Shaka’s military innovations, from weaponry to battle formations and even revolutionary new societal norms, incorporate many of the strategies the world’s greatest innovators of recent times have adopted to conquer hitherto unassailable industries, vanquish established market leaders and build billiondollar brands in record time.
“I’m talking about the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Whatsapp, Snapchat and Instagram,” he said.
Whereas, in the developed world, that was a continuation of the pursuit of wealth, in South Africa it was a fight for survival by overcoming unemployment and poverty.
“By 2020, 75% of businesses will be digital. Companies that don’t digitise and harness the power of the internet will miss out on this $19trillion opportunity and be left behind.
“This will require companies to rethink everything, from how they are run to how their products are created and how they deliver outcomes for their customers,” said Eberl.
Smartxchange was at this same crossroads.