| The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) in partnership with the Mpumalanga Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDT) will host the Grassroots Innovation Workshop at the Gert Sibande TVET College in Evander tomorrow, 19 September 2019, under the theme Innovation for Inclusive Growth.
The hosting of the workshop follows an exercise that was undertaken by the dti to search for grassroots innovators in rural and township areas. The excise was meant to establish accessibility to the dti’s innovation support instruments by underserviced citizens in line with government’s drive to revitalise township and rural economies.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Nomalungelo Gina explains that the exercise revealed that there was valuable knowledge and experience that is generated by grassroots innovators in townships and rural areas, where there was mainly a shortage of infrastructure and proper services.
“To add value to this critical knowledge, we have committed to engage these innovators through a series of workshops to allow our officials to gain better insight on the needs of grassroots innovators to enable the adjustment of existing instruments to meet their needs,” says Gina
Gina mentions that the Grassroots Innovation Workshops will be rolled out to two other provinces following its successful implementation in Limpopo last year.
“These workshops are expected to place us in a best position to cast our focus on the informal sector. We expect to unearth technologies from undersized communities, to create networking platforms for technology development and commercialisation and focused technology development and innovative thinking at grassroots level,” she adds.
The planned workshop will also cover products and services of the dti, DEDT, Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda), Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and Technology Innovation Agency (TIA).
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe-Departmental Spokesperson
Tel: (012) 394 1650
Mobile: 079 492 1774
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
Issued by: The Department of Trade and Industry
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