Monday, June 8, 2009

SAFIPA Conference 2009 - Day 1

Today I was joined by Rene Parker to attend the SAFIPA (South Africa - Finland knowledge partnership on ICT). The key discussion today was about Business Incubators for Innovation and Open Innovation Models to encourage collaborations in the Triple Helix (Academia-Government-Industry) area. A number of Finnish and South African cases were shared with clear indication that South Africa have a long journey to travel to reach full potential of many of these mediums for Innovation.

Our experiences has been that South Africa do have much to offer in innovation in the ICT sector but the support to implement the innovation from idea to implementation is where we are falling short. How we could use these models in a South African context to maximise innovation spaces is yet to be seen. Tomorrow is Day 2 of the conference and the Athlone Living Lab will be presented as a case for Social and Services Innovation.

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