Technology Freedom

Earlier this week I delivered talk at the IEEE UCT Student Chapter  with the theme: 'Young Engineer in the field'. The audience comprised of a Multidisciplinary Engineering, multi-year (Undergrad, Masters, PhD) group.

The talk concluded into a  vibrant  interactive discussion during the Q&A part. Some of the many questions raised, covered amongst others, are:

• 'What is your take on Elon Musk's Hyperloop for South Africa?'
• 'Why do most of our engineers land up in Maintenance and Operations? Why so little/& fragmented R&D clusters?'
• 'Why must we continuously 'import' technologies outside of South Africa?'

Upon reflecting upon on some of the key questions, my mind subsequently raced to a concept I came across during my post graduate studies called : 'Technology Colony'.

The 1999 article: 'Emerging from the Technology Colony: A View from the South'' (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/39b7/9b1411104f674a8c22e0afdc55514494ecc2.pdf) by de Wet refers.

The Conclusion of the article reads: 'Being a technology colony is neither something to be ashamed of, nor necessarily a disaster.  Remaining one, should not be a fate to be suffered, but an opportunity to be managed.  Non-technical managers are poorly qualified to understand the strategic alternatives that need to be considered when either national or corporate management has to decide on the way forward. Therefore those skilled in the management of technology should play their part in creating the best possible growth trajectories for their economies. That this is not a simple task, should no longer be a matter of dispute.  What may be open for alternate views, are the ways and means by which the colonial mindset in so many role players in the technology colony, could be shifted towards an understanding of the extent to which they have been conditioned to see the world in a certain way, and a confidence that they may become much more of masters of their own destiny.'

Some 2 decades have passed since this 'Technology Colony' article has been penned. Based on my recent engagement with some our future engineers, I  can not help to say that it seems that we are still one the 'Technology Colony' page. Needless to say, there is a need for us, as a collective nation, to move to the 'Technology Freedom' page.

In contributing to commemorating our Freedom Day in South Africa (27 April), I would like to conclude with 2 quotations from one of my heroes, Tata Madiba, our late President Nelson Mandela, who said:

'A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special'

'It seem impossible until it is done'

['Side' Comment: This particular post, 'Technology Freedom', were edited a few times.

When I ran the display outcomes and / previews, I noticed that on some platforms, some of the edits were not successful.

For clarity, in one version of the post two pictures might be included. In another version only one pic may be included.

One of the pics (if they are included in the post you reading now) is a  Grade 9 Technology Project (a Civil Structure Model) build by my son and 3 of his class mates. Through their creativity, concerted effort and team work, they scored 100% for the project. If you don't have this pic, please ignore  this paragraph.

The other picture is a photo a I took in Chris Barnard Hospital in Cape Town CBD (near the entrance to the Waterfront). It reads : 'It seem impossible until it is done' ]

Out by almost 2 Decades...

My first post refers. I made reference that it was my understanding then that the NDP was crafted around 1994. In actual fact, the NDP was launched on 15 August 2012. I was out by almost 2 decades!

The National Planning Commission (NPC) was appointed in May 2010 to draft a Vision and a National Development Plan (NDP).

Many thanks again to one of the blog readers who pointed this out to me recently. Until next time: Bye for now...

Capturing the Moment & Celebrating the Win(s)

There is an inspirational quote that goes something like: ‘Don’t wait for the perfect moment, make the moment perfect’

Last night while flying home to Cape Town from Johannesburg, I was browsing through one of our local news papers, 'The Star'. My eye caught sight of the 'NDP' Logo on one of the papers.

The piece covered the topic/ subject on the 'The Sheltered Employment Scheme'. Refer to image below for detail. I realized that I just stumbled across a Success Story on our NDP adventure/ journey and I wanted to share it with you....

Getting into the Starting Blocks

Here is the government's website : www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030 with all the relevant detail. Amongst the key elements, it contains the main NDP document, the Executive Summary and related Speeches.

I must still zoom into these documents. Whilst I am still busy aligning my reading schedule, calibrating my microscopes and telescopes, the following question(s)/ & thought(s)start surfacing:

• It is 2018. There are 12 years left before 2030 arrives ( just over a decade left)

• What Progress has been made to date since the initial ‘baseline’ starting date?

• How does the Score Card look? What was measured? How was it measured? Did we measure the ‘right’ stuff? How did we measure the ‘moving’ targets? What benchmarks did we use? BRICS’s? Ghana’s? Nigeria’s? Finland’s?

• It is my assumption that the NDP has been in ‘operation’ for some 20 years. With about 10 years are left, my math / project management toolbox tells me that in theory, we should have progressed by 67% approximately. My gut feels tells me that we have not even reached the 50% mark yet. What is our % of completion?

• What are the Success Stories? What are the Areas of Improvement? Where are the pockets of Excellence? How can we make the pockets of Excellence ‘fluid’ ? How can we make it easily be exported to other areas of improvement? How can we do things differently?

Let me conclude this post with my personal motto : ‘Nothing is Absolute! There is Always a Better Way to Do things’

Enjoy the rest of your long weekend and have a Happy Easter weekend. Until my next blog post, Enjoy .