National Information Technology Policy Conference
Edwin Blake
note that I have set the follow-up to za.info-policy.
A Subjective and Personal Report on the
^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^
National Information Technology Policy Conference
held on 22-23 November 1995
at the Karos Indaba Hotel, Fourways, Gauteng.
Edwin Blake --- Dept of Computer Science, University of Cape Town.
The purpose of this conference was to announce and explore the
possibility of setting up a National Information Technology Forum. The
outcome was that a conference at which such a forum is to be launched
will be held in March 1996. A steering committee has been elected to
oversee the process leading up to the inaugural meeting of the National
Information Technology Forum. The objectives for the forum are the
usual (new) South African ones of openness, transparency, inclusivety
and representation of all stakeholders.
It is clear (to me at any rate) that many relevant people were not at
this first conference. It was overwhelmingly a Gauteng gathering ---
and that is not a good thing to maintain considering the competition for
IT based industries that will probably emerge between provinces and even
municipalities.
At the end of this I give some details of the organization. First some
opinions:
Enabling Technology
-------------------
The major point about IT is that it is the key enabling technology that
will make our industry competitive on the world market. This
competitiveness is vital whether one intends exporting or not. An
industry has no choice: under the new economic order you are open to
competition from all (especially if you are a developing country without
much clout for special bargaining) even in your home market.
The effect of the internet and other telecommunications changes is to
level the grounds for competition. A South African company can easily
market itself worldwide and a more efficient international producer can
easily penetrate the smallest and most obscure markets for a bit more
profit.
I won't go into this more: it seems the arguments are obvious. Either
we take part in the global information technology revolution or we face
new and interesting forms of underdevelopment.
An important quest is therefore the need for the RDP to recognize the
key role that IT has to play in developing our economy. This is
currently not the case. The most forceful (and witty) arguments for
this were advanced by Joe Tsotetsi (there is a list of speakers
appended).
How one achieves the development of IT in such a way that it advanced
to serve local needs was the net important question. Since this is a
particular interest of mine I'll return to it below ("centres of
excellence").
Universal Service
-----------------
Having look at the economic needs and impact of IT the other question is
how communities at large can benefit from the IT revolution. A strength
of the conference was the strong presence of NGO's, community
organizations, trade unions and civics.
The interpretation of the concept of universal service (which has been
developed in the first place for telephony) as it applies to IT emerged
fairly clearly at this conference. The idea is to have community
centres that offer a range of networked computing services to local
communities. Such centres can be established at schools or libraries or
other centres throughout the county in all areas.
A consequence of this is that high-bandwidth access must be provided
even to remote rural areas.
The most developed form of this was introduced by Spier: the idea of a
digital utility (analogous to an electrical utility). He was at pains
to point out that this did not really depend on technological
breakthroughs so much as on new ways of thinking about the financing and
distribution of IT related facilities. The idea is that each consumer
pays only small incremental charges to access needed bit of the
information highway.
Centres of Excellence
---------------------
The rate of development of IT means that each country has to devote a
significant effort to training and building of local expertise. In fact
the developments are such that a country which cannot stay at the
forefront of the exponential growth curves that characterize IT still
has to ensure that it remains within sight of the latest so that if an
emerging technology is considered important it is able to leapfrog
intervening stages and exploit the relevant advance.
The best way to concurrently keep track of IT developments and emerging
economic and social needs seems to be to establish centres of excellence
in particular fields. Such centres must have a strong research
component, strong orientation towards development of the applicable
results of research, as well as ability to support the development of
small businesses and community projects.
This argument was strongly supported by the experience in Canada
reported by Graham Sibthorpe. While the Canadian federal government was
pulling out of many commitments it still recognized the need to support
R & D.
Another argument I made was that currently support for r&d in advanced
technology to support the competitive development of our economy
(including funds to establish centres of excellence) have to me from
foreign aid donors. Now it is precisely such areas that donors do *not*
want to fund
SA Current Competitive Position
------------------------------
Many speakers referred to the fact that in a comparison with 48
equivalent countries we came 43! (We are not talking the US Japan etc,
this was a comparison with Poland, Brazil: our league ...). In our
people skills we came last.
In contrast we are 16th worldwide our use of the internet. (No don't ask
me how these rankings were gotten at). This time playing in the big
league.
Why this contrast? (No-one seemed to ask this question). I think it has
something to do with the fact that in this case our universities and
researchers spearheaded the project and were given some backing and then
students or people with good academic contacts could set up small
businesses to exploit the technology. Does anyone have better knowledge
of this?
Convergence
-----------
IT and telecoms and broadcasting are clearly coming together. The
problem is that "wires and pipes" people do not understand the crucial
importance of content (or applications or information) that makes the
fat pipe worthwhile. If they do mention it they simply talk as if there
is a source of information that must be tapped and channeled. You see
they take the pipe analogy too literally.
Actually information wires do not relate to information in the same way
electricity or water relate to their carriers --- for all the talk of
digital utilities. Creating content and applications to run over the
wires is a very intensive activity --- much more difficult to do than
provide the infrastructure (and by the way one way non-interactive
infrastructure just don't suffice).
So there might be convergence but it has to be governed by the needs of
the users (communities, business) as interpreted by IT developers. The
difficulty in this is that IT is not mature (especially not in these
areas) and so top-down from the users does not work without some
indication of what is possible: hence another aspect of the need for
Research into local needs.
Quote of the conference
-----------------------
Ms Abrahams' "cadre of entrepreneurs".
What can one say to that except: viva the new south africa.
Organizational Information:
===========================
The conference was organized by an ad hoc "National Technology Policy
Coordinating Committee". This committee was mainly centred round the
CDITP (ANC derived "Centre for Development of Information and
Telecommunications Policy") with substantial cooperation from the CSSA
(Computer Society of South Africa). The conference was sponsored by
CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). The conference was
organized by "Forge Ahead" conferences.
The following papers were presented:
====================================
Chairperson's opening address: Background and Objectives
--- Andile Ngcaba
Information: A national resource and asset for development
--- Neville Goodchild, Department of Trade and Industry
The Need for a National Information Infrastructure
--- Niall Murphy, editor, Systems Publishers
Science and Technology Green Paper
--- Dr Robert Adams, Dept Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
IT and Structural Issues: The role of government and private sector
--- Dr Ben Fouche, CSIR
Information technology research in support of the reconstruction
and development programme
--- Prof Edwin Blake, Comp Science, UCT
IT Development in Canada: A case study
--- Graham Sibthorpe, The Branham Consulting Group, Ottawa
The Role of IT in the Broader South African Economy
--- Lucienne Abrahams, Gauteng Provincial Commission
IT and Competition Policy in SA: Pros and cons
--- Simon Reynolds, President, CSSA
Harnessing IT for Development
--- Andre Spier, Learning network corporation
IT and RDP
--- Joe Tsotetsi, CSSA and Motswedi Informaiton Systems
Information Economy --- Transfomation of Businesses
--- Themba Fnzani, Link Technologies
Information Technology Consultative Forum (ITCF)
--- Gail Sturgess, CSSA
Recommendations and Way Forward
--- Samuel Mphuti, Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council
--
Edwin Blake <ed...@cs.uct.ac.za> (or <ed...@cwi.nl>)
Computer Science, University of Cape Town, Tel. +27 21 650 3661
Rondebosch 7700, South Africa. Fax +27 21 650 3726
<URL: http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/~edwin>