The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sector Summit was opened in Midrand today with communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri calling for suggestions that can be implemented to grow the number of jobs in the sector.
The summit has been described as an historic event, as it is the first to flow from a Presidential Jobs Summit held in 1998, where it was decided that all sectors with the potential to create or lose jobs must hold its own conference.
Matsepe-Casaburri, handling the opening in lieu of deputy president Jacob Zuma, said the reality of globalisation and an information society could not be ignored.
"This knowledge revolution is upon us, we cannot wish it away," she said. "The question is how we respond to it."
She said the digital age had led telecommunications companies to reduce the number of staff they employ, but had created other job opportunities in other areas of technology. "We see this as a two-sided thing, which has its positives and its negatives."
She called on delegates to find imaginative ways in which the labour force can be educated to take advantage of the jobs available as requirements shift from low-skilled to highly-skilled. "There should be a concerted campaign for a comprehensive re-skilling of our people," she said.
Matsepe-Casaburri also asked delegates to realise that the Southern African region, and Africa as a whole, looks to SA for leadership. "As we solve problems, we don`t only solve them for SA, we solve them for the continent of Africa," she said.
Yet she acknowledged that for IT to prove its benefits to Africa, such as opening up global markets, infrastructure is required, especially broadband Internet access.
"Without the infrastructure, ICTs cannot really do for us what they should do," she said.
The around 600 delegates from business, labour, government and civil society attending the event will today discuss issues such as increasing investment in the sector, human resource development and improving IT services in commissions. An official declaration is due to be adopted in a plenary session tomorrow.
The summit is being held under the auspices of Nedlac, the National Economic Development and Labour Council.
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