After its sudden collapse in 2008, the Eastern Cape Information Technology Initiative (ECITI) has decided to pick up the pieces and re-introduce itself.
The initiative was officially reintroduced in January to help develop an ICT hub by the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) and various industry players for the province.
It is a registered non-profit organisation established to facilitate rapid introduction, support and business sustainability of ICT and film sector-related SMEs in the province. The aim of the initiative is to support entrepreneurship, promote innovation and ICT infrastructure roll-out in rural areas this year.
ECITI was taken over by Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), which ran a similar incubator model for ICT and it became the core sponsor. Two centres existed in Port Elizabeth and East London.
“The Port Elizabeth centre was able to attract industry partners with the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality playing a key role. It was subsequently changed to the Nelson Mandela Bay ICT Hub,” ECITI says.
According to the organisation, because the East London centre faced challenges in attracting local players (local government participation) in the programme, SEDA pulled out in March 2008.
“The result was an incubator facility with no funding. Subsequently, because it believed in the need for an ICT hub in the province, from April 2008 to August 2008, ECDC came back onboard and set up a project steering committee to rescue ECITI as a key funder. In November 2009, a new ECITI strategy was completed,” it points out.
ECITI says in March 2010, an executive manager Patricia Dlamini was appointed to drive ECITI and a development programme was put together for the incubates.
The organisation says Dlamini brings to ECITI knowledge in small enterprise development strategies, business incubator management and business management which she acquired through her past experiences where she ran and headed entrepreneurship portfolios and also experience she acquired while running her own business.
According to Dlamini, the organisation supports 11 small ICT businesses - nine of which operate at the ECITI hub, employing about 25 full-time staff.
“Although all the businesses are from East London, plans are in place to set up an ICT centre in other regions in the Amatole and OR Tambo district municipalities.”
She says the province needs an ICT platform which could be used to drive other sectors of the economy using technology.
Besides the entrepreneurs in the hub, she notes, ECITI has two virtual incubates, which are businesses that are not located within the hub or have office space. ECITI plans to use this virtual incubator model to reach small ICT players in other parts of the province.
“ECITI's role is to help incubates to properly manage their businesses and they are put through an 18 to 24-month programme. The length of time spent in the programme depends on the needs of the business.
“I am proud to say that many of the entrepreneurs in the hub are performing within expectations. We also encourage our ICT entrepreneurs to attract public and private sector clients to reduce the dependency on a single client,” Dlamini reveals.
The hub offers business support services such as links to tertiary institutions, mentorship, networking, access to local and international markets, funders and potential investors, to name a few.
It is also working on establishing relationships with academic institutions, government and industry.
Businesses that operate from the ECITI hub use shared infrastructure and services such as boardrooms, training and meeting rooms and IT infrastructure.
According to the organisation, building a business can be tough on one's own. “By joining an incubator, you get plugged into a community of people with the same goals as you; a community of skilled and diverse friends who can help you transform your vision into reality.”
The organisation says it is driven by the fact that ICT graduates from the Eastern Cape are drawn to other provinces, of which some have entrepreneurial potential. “So the province loses intellectual capital and entrepreneurs because there is no support for technological innovative SMEs,” it says.
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