South Africa: Technology Innovation Agency Bill bridging the innovation chasm

The Creamer Media's Engineering News  has a very interesting article on the widely debated Technology Innovation Agency Bill "SA's new R500m agency seeks to bridge the innovation chasm".

For the Technology Innovation Agency Bill click here.

A small extract from the article is reproduced bellow:

In South Africa it is called the 'Innovation Chasm'. It's not unique to this country, but that does not make it any less of a problem. It is the gap between innovative ideas or new research, on the one hand, and new products and industries which will help grow and develop the economy, on the other. Or, if you prefer the words of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), it is "the gap between the local knowledge base and the productive economy".

This has been a matter of concern for some time, with the idea of creating an institution to help bridge this gap being first proposed during the development of the Science and Technology White Paper in 1996. This proposal was reaffirmed in the 2002 National Research and Development Strategy. In July last year, Cabinet approved a process to create such an institution, officially dubbed the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA).

The draft TIA Bill was published in August 2007, revised in October 2007, and republished in revised form and with invitations for written submissions in December 2007. Public hearings took place in mid- and late-January 2008, and the Bill was adopted by the National Assembly early this month.

To read the entire article click here.