Into Africa Part One

We visit twelve innovation centers in three South African provinces

“Start-Up Culture” is a incubator and co-working space for 650 companies on five campuses throughout Pretoria. Very sophisticated “general purpose” business incubator.

NGIN’s work with the United Nations Development Organization (UNIDO) on the “Just Transition to the Future” technology challenge brings us to South Africa for nine days.  In Pretoria we held a launch event and signed an MOU with South Africa’s Technology Innovation Agency (TIA).  We then went on a mini road trip to twelve innovation centers in three provinces ending in Cape Town. Along the way we experienced two sides of South Africa, got robbed for the first time in our lives, and touched the southernmost tip of the African continent.  Then it’s off to Namibia for a week.

This trip is emblematic of how we’ve traveled together for nearly fourteen years. KR comes with me on 90% of my business trips. As with this trip, they are usually packed with business meetings of one kind or another, yet we still find a couple days (or nights) to see the surrounds. In this case, Karen had to endure taking many of the meetings with me as we traveled to different cities for a day, then flew to the next city that night. This is the way we’ve seen parts of the world we would never have gotten to without a business reason to go: Ethiopia, South Korea, Vietnam, China, Egypt and Kazakstan to name a few. The downside is that we never stay long enough to really get to know and understand the places we visit. Our view is it is better to have a tiny taste than none at all.

TIA is a unique breed of government agency as its chartered with pushing innovation throughout South Africa.   No other country that I’ve been involved with has a national agency with a similar charter. TIA funds programs ranging from “Technology Stations” in a dozen universities, programs dedicated to teaching entrepreneurs how to be better entrepreneurs (NGIN delivers some of this programming), to investment funds that aid early-stage companies.  The purpose of thesaQ road trip was to discover ways that these centers can better work together, thus generating economies of scale and best practices. To do that, we need to get to know each organization.

TIA has a staff of 150 and funds 600 programs across South Africa each year.

E-mobility research lab on the Nelson Mandela University Campus in Port Elizabeth. These Tech Stations perform research, training, and testing for industry, students and government.

This the kind of e-mobility vehicle that I'‘m most interested in.

One of the things that I was impressed with was the number of prototyping/maker spaces these innovation centers had: e-mobility, “deep tech",” food R&D, renewable energy labs, and textile manufacturing.

Not a bad set of principles

This Tech Station focuses on training technicians in Wind and Solar energy. Think of it as preparing the workforce of the future.

The Two South Africas: Cape Town and Pretoria feel like two different sides of Africa. Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital, felt like any other big city with congestion, hustle and people everywhere. To a visitor, it felt integrated both socially and business wise. Cape Town, on the other hand, seemed to represent the European version of South Africa: a few wealthy (mostly white) people and a whole lot of very poor black people. Crime is an issue throughout South Africa; we were warned to be careful on the streets by many more people while in Cape Town than Pretoria. While officially desegregated, Cape Town still for most practical purposes is segregated. I felt guilty that I liked the buzz of Cape Town and the beautiful scenery of the Cape as much as I did. I know that I’m one of the privileged that can enjoy it.

View from our hotel in Cape Town. Cape Town is pretty much drop dead gorgeous

Wee took a one day tour of the Cape. It was really really beautiful.

What’s an African trip without animals? Here KR ponders a large seal.

One of the first stops, of course, was to the famous Cape penguin colony.

At the end of the week late on a Friday afternoon, our host Vusi Skosana took us on a quick wine tasting tour of South Africa’s very well known Stellenbosh wine region. We got in two wineries, both of which were beautiful with great wine.

This is a screen shot of the map I was looking at on my phone and I tried to navigate first to the local pharmacy, and then to the waterfront. At this point some kid ran up, grabbed my phone out of my hand, and ran off. I tried to fight him off, but to no avail. Everyone nearby rushed up to help and some even tried to catch the thief. Lesson No. 1: Always pay attention to your surroundings! This is the first time I’ve ever been robbed.

We’re now off to Namibia for another 10+ days.