DST to host INSITE in September

By Staff Writer for DST
Johannesburg, 01 Aug 2008

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) will next month host the International Science Innovation and Technology Exhibition (INSITE) to showcase solutions that address "pressing social and economic challenges".

INSITE, held every two years, is part of the DST's promotion of its "National System of Innovation", a 10-year innovation plan that has set SA five "grand challenges", namely:

* "Farmer to pharma"
* Space science
* Energy
* Climate change
* Human and social dynamics

Although ICT is not itself a "grand challenge", the DST says it is an "enabler", one example of its role being in the Square Kilometre Array bid that forms part of the DST's space science drive.

The 1.5 billion-euro project is entirely dependent on broadband technology and supercomputing with a high-performance computing centre worth millions of rands mooted for Carnarvon, in the Great Karoo, if SA wins the right to host the radio telescope.

High-performance computing also underlies some of the research and development currently under way in the energy field, principally in developing the pebble-bed modular nuclear reactor and also in better understanding climate change.

The exhibition will take place on 15-17 September at the Sandton Convention Centre.