The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) is today hosting the last leg of its workshops aimed at bringing essential services closer to entrepreneurs, innovators and the broader community in the Northern Cape.
Thursday’s workshop which is being held at the Protea Hotel in Kimberly, is the last of the three legs of the workshops that began on Tuesday.
Deputy Director-General of Investment and Spatial Industrial Development at the dtic, Yunis Hoosen, said the workshops are aimed at unearthing technologies from underdeveloped communities and townships, creating networking platforms for technology development and commercialisation, focused technology development and innovative thinking at grassroots levels.
“This is a series of workshops setup to form partnerships and gain better understanding of the needs of innovators to enable the development or adjustment of existing instruments to meet their needs.
“The workshops will be held in at two other rural provinces after its successful implementation in the Northern Cape,” Hoosen said.
The three-day workshops have been hosted by the dtic in collaboration with the Northern Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism, the Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency (SEDFA) and the Phokwane Regional Innovation Networking Platform (PRINP).
The dtic was also presenting the Khoebo Innovation Promotion Programme (KIPP) initiative aimed at aiding small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and start-ups to stimulate the township and rural economies through providing financial and non-financial support, and for market entry of locally developed innovative products and services across all sectors of the economy.
“KIPP’s objective is to enable early-stage innovative SMME’s to penetrate the market with their locally developed innovations resulting in a more competitive economic environment and thereby facilitating economic growth in the South African Economy.
“The programme was formed in 2020 and has to-date funded more than 42 projects from a wide range of economic sectors with R160 million committed,” said Hoosen.
The workshops kicked off in the Kuruman City Lodge on Tuesday, then moved to the Hartswater Town Hall on Wednesday.
-SAnews.gov.za
