Launched nearly a decade ago, Telkom's Centres of Excellence (COE) have helped expand the skills pool in the critical areas of ICT and allied social sciences, contain the country's brain drain and have helped Telkom forge a strong relationship with the academic community.
A collaborative programme between Telkom, about 27 industry partners and government, there are 16 COEs located at tertiary institutions of higher education across the country.
In the last financial year approximately 220 students were part of the programme, with 44 of them receiving Telkom bursaries.
"An important feature of the COE programme is the extensive science, engineering and technology research opportunities offered to students. This has helped contain the brain drain, especially of scarce skills, as the facilities and opportunities afforded to the young scientists and engineers on the programme encourage them to utilise their industry expertise within the country," states Marius Mostert, Telkom's Executive for Network Support Operations.
Each COE has a unique focus area, with young students focusing their research energies on technologies and solutions that would have industry benefits for the future.
In recent years, areas of research have been as diverse as Distributed Multimedia, Radio Access involving CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) receivers, ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and broadband networks, Internet Protocol networks and Optical Communication.
"In addition to developing skills in science, engineering and technology, the Centres also promote partnerships between historically disadvantaged and advantaged institutions," said Mostert.
During the past two years, the COE programme was expanded beyond South Africa's borders and formal research agreements have been concluded between various COEs and several NEPAD countries. Locally, more industry players are also becoming part of the programme. For instance, at a function at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth yesterday, Hezeki Contracting and MCT Telecommunications joined Ingoma Communication Services, Telecommunications Facilities Management and DiData as industry partners to Telkom for the COE located at the NMMU.
The focal research area for this COE is on optic fibre. "Optical fibre remains the backbone of any modern telecommunications network. As the demand for fast and efficient means of communication continues to increase, there's an urgent need for our country to ensure that our technology and infrastructure in this regard remains internationally competitive," stated Mostert. "Increased requirements for data transfer, spurred on by the massive expansion in Internet traffic, necessitates the use of optical fibres that can handle faster bit rates without loss of signal definition or resolution.
"Issues such as polarisation mode dispersion and chromatic dispersion that limit high-speed optic fibre networks, are among the core areas of research focus for this COE at the Physics Department of the NMMU," explained Mostert.
He added that the timing of the function at the NMMU was significant. "Coming a day before World Telecommunications Day, with its theme for this year being 'Connecting the Young', what we have at all our COEs is a situation where the youth of today - the prime communications users of tomorrow - with their tremendous appetite for bandwidth hungry multimedia applications, are driving cutting-edge research that will yield industry benefits for the immediate and long-term future."
World Telecommunications Day is celebrated annually on 17 May, the day which saw the founding of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. The day seeks to focus attention on the value of ICT in the economic and social upliftment of all nations in the world and in technology innovations worldwide.
It is also significant, emphasised Mostert, that more local industry partners become involved with the research initiatives of COEs countrywide. "In this way, we won't only be connecting more of our young but will provide ICT access to all South Africans, including those from previously disadvantaged communities," concluded Mostert.
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