Implementation Initiatives
  

Over the last two years, SAITIS has, through an extensive collaborative process, drawn on the expertise of many players in government, industry, labour, academia and civil society, to develop what is now known as the ICT Sector Development Framework. The Minister of Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, officially launched this document in November 2000. The launch of this document heralded the end of the projects strategy development era and the start of an implementation process that will stimulate the South African ICT Sector to new heights of development.

SAITIS and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) have started the implementation process, tackling several initiatives that start to address the many strategies presented in the four pillars of the ICT Sector Development Framework.

 
 
 
 
 
 

In preparation for the launch of the SDF, three priorities of initiatives were identified:

These initiatives commenced immediately following the launch of the SDF in November 2000.  In general terms, these initiatives are viewed as:

  •           Having relatively high impact on sector development.

  • ·         Being clearly within the domain of the stakeholder responsible for implementation.

  • ·         Having well-understood, and affordable, implementation costs.

  • ·         Capable of being moved forward quickly within existing budgets.

  • ·         Building on existing initiatives where possible.

Each of the immediate initiatives has their individual next step due to the different groundwork done by the SAITIS Project Office for each of these different initiatives.  The following immediate initiatives and the recommended next steps forward are discussed individually in the sections that follow.

 

  Immediate Initiatives: 
ICT Sector Development

1.    Governance and Organisational Approach

2.    Impact Analysis of Current ICT Initiatives

3.    ICT Cluster Development

4.    ICT Sector Portal

5.    Review of Policies

6.    Assess the impact of Telecoms Deregulation

 
 
ICT Usage Development

1.       ICT Diffusion and ICT applications in Usage Sectors

 
 
HR Development

1.     Youth Internship Incentive Scheme

2.     Collection of ICT Labour Market Statistics

3.     Black/Women ICT SMME Skills and Enterprise Development

4.     Re-Skilling of Retrenched Workers

5.     Study on Internet Entrepreneurs

 

 
ICT Innovation

1.      ICT Innovation Fund

 

 

Short-term initiatives:

The SDF also identified several other initiatives that could be implemented in support of the framework. The SAITIS Project Office has done some preliminary research on these initiatives and a scoping document has been developed that describes each of these initiatives.  The existing information on the initiatives will assist the DTI in making their decision to proceed with the implementation of this short to medium term initiatives.  The following short to medium initiatives are described in more detail in this document. 

 

ICT Sector Development

2.       Undertake Satellite Cluster Pilot

3.       Support Information exchange within the ICT Sector

 

ICT Usage Development

1.       Conduct ICT Awareness Program

2.       Conduct a Cross Sectoral Pilot

3.       Conduct a Smart Community Pilot

4.       Participate in Planning a National Information Infrastructure initiative

5.       Establish Cooperative Mechanisms

 

Human Resource Development

1.       Establish ICT Co-operative Work Experience

2.       Change Management Training for Disadvantaged Organisations

 

ICT Innovation

1.       Establish ICT Innovation Awards

2.       Establish ICT Innovation Listening Post

3.       Develop and Implement a Network of Centres of Excellence Program

 

The implementation entity will need to review and assess the documentation developed by the SAITIS Project for each of these initiatives to determine the continued relevance and priority.  Based on the process followed by the SAITIS Project in funding the immediate initiatives, the DTI will need to put the following steps and processes in place:

 

  • ·     Determine the partners and alliances for the specific initiatives.

  • ·     Secure funding for each of the initiatives.

  • ·     Develop a Terms of Reference that would describe the short-term deliverables to implement     the initiatives.

  • ·   Assign the management of the initiatives and the deliverables to a specific organisation. 

  •     Evaluate the outputs and determine the way forward.

 

 

Long-term initiatives

The long-term initiatives were identified as actions to address strategies of the SDF that have not yet been addressed through SAITIS-related initiatives or other initiatives, currently being undertaken by other stakeholders.  

The initiatives identified through an impact analysis on initiatives currently underway in South Africa will form part of the long-term process. The analysis of these current initiatives is presented in Appendix H of this plan. The mapping of current initiatives and the SDF gives a clear indication of the identified initiatives and their impact on the SAITIS ICT Sector Development Framework.  This mapping also indicate the number of Strategies that are supported by each initiative as well as number of initiatives that impacts on each strategy. The SAITIS Project made the distinction between primary and secondary ICT industry support.  Initiatives with direct impact on the specific strategy were marked as primary/direct.  This means that the initiative has the same objectives as those of the strategy.  Where initiatives recognise the strategy but do not have the strategy as a goal or objective, it was marked as an initiative with secondary impact on the specific strategy.