Joint SAP Meraka Unit bolsters SA technology research, development capability

A partnership between SAP Africa and South Africa's Meraka Institute, supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is aimed at attracting funding and co-investment from various sources of up to R100 million over the next five years. It will establish a facility known as the SAP Meraka Unit for Technology Development to undertake basic and applied information and communications technology (ICT) research that will foster technology innovation in South Africa.

The Meraka Institute, managed by the CSIR, has as its major objective to promote national economic and social development through human capital development and needs-based research and innovation in the ICT sector.

Agreement between the parties on the establishment of the unit was announced on Wednesday, 3 May 2006, at a dinner in Pretoria hosted by the SAP SA Research Group (SAP Research CEC Pretoria) - which was launched in June 2005 to find ways to use ICT to enable socio-economic development.

Although the SAP SA Research Group and the SAP Meraka Unit will operate independently, representatives of the SAP SA Research Group, the Meraka Institute and the DST will sit on the unit's scientific advisory board and management committee to assess projects and set research priorities.

The Director-General of the DST, Dr Philemon Mjwara, noted that "the department's support for the establishment of the SAP Meraka Unit forms part of its concerted strategy to internationalise South African science and technology, and make South Africa a preferred destination for the location of global research and innovation capacities - including by multinational companies. The department specifically appreciates the high premium placed on human capital development by the SAP - Meraka partnership, especially in terms of making available training and fellowship opportunities for researchers from historically disadvantaged communities."

"It's common knowledge that there is a direct positive relationship between progress in science and technology and socio-economic development - yet South Africa does less than half a percent of the world's new science and technology knowledge generation," says Llew Jones, the Meraka Institute's Director. "It's imperative, therefore, that we gain access to the rest of the world's science and technology knowledge base and skills, so that we can improve our capacity.

"And that means developing what I call 'sticky' and appropriate international relationships on the science and technology front.

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"Appropriate in that we don't want to sell ourselves as a cheap destination, because other emerging economies can always undercut us. Also, we want to be equal partners in and contributors to the relationship.

"'Sticky' in that we want long-term relationships. We don't want to have to keep building relationships over and over again. And we want the impact and influence of the relationships to last, in terms of creating a critical mass of South African researchers whose skills can be applied to many different future projects.

"In addition, we don't want to be only an outsourcing destination. We want to be a research destination that will enhance the country's ability to draw foreign direct investment generally and in technology specifically.

"Our relationship with SAP Research meets all those criteria - as well as enabling us to use their credibility in the ICT sector to encourage other multinationals to partner with us in their own fields of expertise. Being the first of its kind, the SAP Meraka Unit will be a benchmark for other such initiatives."

Jones also believes the SAP Meraka Unit proves that helping to develop human capital on a broad, national front rather than only in-house makes good business sense for commercial companies.

SAP Research EMEA Vice-President, Dr Joachim Schaper, agrees. "The SAP Meraka Unit will help SAP as a global organisation understand the technology needs of emerging economies and, therefore, enable us to make our products and services more relevant to those markets. And, because we already know that products for technology-deprived communities need to be a lot easier to use than they currently are, the adjustments we make to SAP technology for emerging markets is also going to streamline the products we offer in our established markets.

"Which makes helping the South African government meet its objectives of triggering research innovation, local development and commercialisation an extremely powerful and persuasive business case for us."