The SAP Meraka Unit for Technology Development, a partnership between SAP Africa and South Africa's Meraka Institute, and supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is to restructure its intern and doctorate programmes to create longer-term career options for local academics from previously disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Meraka Institute is a national research centre managed by the CSIR.
The programmes will accordingly add greater impetus to the process of expanding local research capacity and turning South Africa into a research destination.
The SAP Meraka Unit represents co-investment by the DST and SAP to the tune of R50 million each over the next five years in order to develop South African research capabilities in the area of ICT.
The aim is to find practical ways of using ICT to alleviate under-development and poverty in South Africa. Research on a number of projects began this year and, in the process, eight six-month internship posts for undergraduate and Honours students, as well as six three-year posts for doctoral students, were created.
Director of the SAP Research CEC in Pretoria, Danie Kok, says that although the six-month positions have been useful in giving local researchers hands-on exposure to research projects, there is a need for a longer-term focus on some of the projects.
"Honours and doctoral studies involve people in long years of learning without the support of competitive salaries. So they want positions that will give them an adequate lifestyle and a sense of job security, as well as enabling them to run with a project from inception to completion. That's not only good for their CVs, it's also good for their job satisfaction."
The SAP Meraka Unit will therefore, from January 2008, offer interns with Honours qualifications two-year contracts, and doctoral students three-year contracts. The contracts will be treated as bursaries in that students must complete their Masters or doctoral studies within the period of employment with the unit. Also, a portion of the salary - which will be market-related - will be refundable by anyone who does not complete a degree in the agreed time.
The SAP Meraka Unit will also in future make academic appointments to the unit jointly with universities.
"This means we will not be depleting academic teaching resources by unfairly attracting them into commerce and that students will continue to have the best possible tuition. At the same time, lecturers have the opportunity to broaden their experience by working on the kinds of projects the Meraka Institute undertakes," Johan Eksteen of the Meraka Institute says.
These changes to the SAP Meraka Unit's strategies were announced during a visit to South Africa this week by three senior SAP Research executives: Professor Lutz Heuser, Head of SAP Research; Dr Joachim Schaper, vice-president of SAP Research EMEA; and Thomas Widenka, vice-president of SAP Research Portfolio Office. The visit was aimed at reinforcing SAP's commitment to emerging economies, particularly to the benefit of the South African government and academic institutions.
Heuser said: "Putting moral imperatives aside, we see helping the South African government meet its objectives of triggering research innovation, local development and commercialisation as mutually beneficial.
"That's because 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. As 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 are also going to streamline the products we offer our established markets."
The SAP Meraka Unit's research agenda focuses on enabling ICT to contribute to the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a developing context. Research topics include technical applications, infrastructure, business, and human-computer interaction.
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Meraka Institute
(African Advanced Institute for Information and Communications Technology)
The Meraka Institute is a large-scale intervention in the information and communications technology space to address challenges in both the developed economy (integrated with the global economy) and the emergent economy (characterised by informal economic activity and poverty).
The institute was launched in May 2005 as a result of the process initiated by the State of the Nation Speech of President Thabo Mbeki in 2002. As a national research, it is managed by the CSIR and supported by the Departments of Communication and of Science and Technology.
The institute aims to facilitate national economic and social development through human capital development; application innovation (realising societal benefits through more applied R&D) and advanced research in selected technology domains relevant to the local context, in cooperation with tertiary education institutions.
The term, Meraka, means communal grazing land, to be used productively, either privately or communally, and kept for the common good. The institute espouses the spirit of digital meraka and welcomes discussion with those interested in exploring the possibility of partnering.
Meraka Institute initiatives and projects promote the use of ICT for education and training, improved accessibility to information and services, low-cost connectivity and applications of earth observation, and to support people with disabilities. New areas of research and innovation are constantly under development. On the web: http://www.meraka.org.za/
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