Cisco Systems has relocated to the Innovation Hub, a science park in Tshwane, with designing solutions to suit Africa and the developing world in mind.
"The Innovation Hub is closely located to both the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the University of Pretoria and this enables us to generate strong collaboration between academia, research, government and the technology industry. This will bring players from four different fields together to build technology solutions that are contextual to Africa," says Vaughan Baptiste, public sector account manager at Cisco Systems.
Many technology solutions are based on global best practices, which may not be relevant to the developing world, says Baptiste, and Cisco wants to transform such solutions to meet African needs.
The Innovation Hub is one of 11 Blue IQ provincial initiatives, which aim to turn Gauteng into a "smart province".
"We hope to leverage the strong relationship between the Hub and the Tswane Municipality to assist government in realising its service delivery vision of Batho Pele (People First), especially in terms of technology implementations for schools, libraries, local government offices and the like, as part of our contribution to the 'smart province` concept," says Baptiste.
"The Hub is about developing intellectual property, exposing players to cutting-edge technology and allowing residents the opportunity to interact with global companies and their cutting edge facilities," says Neville Comins, the Innovation Hub CEO.
"We are keen to see continuous growth in the country`s knowledge base and agree with Cisco`s view of treating the Hub as place where local development can take place," he says.
Share
