Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 02-02-2018

Gauteng Premier David Makhura says the province is determined to be the leader in innovation, research and development.

Makhura was speaking at the Technology Innovation Conference 2018 at the Gallagher Conference Centre in Midrand on Thursday.

The Gauteng Provincial Government is hosting the two day event under the theme ‘Building Innovative Technology Ecosystems for a Modernised City Region’.

The conference seeks to explore the impact of the 4th Industrial revolution on Gauteng’s economy and brings together experts in the ICT field and decision makers from both the private and public sectors to analyse the wave of digital and technological innovation that is sweeping across the South African economy.

Makhura says the emerging and fast growing sectors of the Gauteng economy are the knowledge intensive sectors.

“Also of significance is that Gauteng is the most technologically intensive province in the country, with 84.3% of Gauteng households having access to a functional cellular phone and 65% having internet access – which is significantly higher than the national average of 53.5%”.

Makhura says Over 1 500 kilometres of network fibre have been installed across Gauteng, including 1 066 Gauteng Broadband Network access sites at schools, health sites, libraries, community centres.

He says the goal is to achieve 100% broadband connectivity in Gauteng by 2020.

“It has now become a norm in Gauteng that every new school we are building comes fully equipped with state of the art technology, free Wi-Fi and smart classrooms.”

The conference is a follow up from the eKasi ICT Summit which was held two years ago in Soweto.

Twitter: @FaizelPatel143