Finance and Economic Opportunities
In relation to her Department’s support for the Western Cape technology sector:
What steps has her Department taken to make the technology sector in the province more inclusive of women and previously disadvantaged groups?
The Strategic Economic Accelerators and Drivers [SEAD] Branch within the Department tackles critical inhibitors to economic growth and initiatives which capitalise on economic opportunities that arise due to market forces or technological advances and stimulates investment into the province.
Within SEAD, the Chief Directorate: Digital Economy strives to improve the competitiveness of businesses and the livelihoods of citizens across the following themes: Connected Leadership, Connected Business and Connected Citizens.
Some examples of tech-focussed initiatives previously supported by the Department include:
Khayelitsha Bandwidth Barn
The Khayelitsha Bandwidth Barn is a township entrepreneurial and innovation tech incubator. This facility is managed by the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative [CiTi], providing connectivity infrastructure and an integrated set of enterprise development interventions to assist entrepreneurs through ICT enablement, and to build, grow and scale sustainable businesses. The facility also provides youth and school learners with opportunities to develop coding skills and attend career expos for early exposure to ICT related vocation possibilities. The City of Cape Town is a co-funder.
The Women in Business (WIB) programme is an online business development offering for women owned business in the Khayelitsha and surrounding areas. From 2019 through to March 2022, 122 owners of women owned businesses completed this programme.
The Youth in Business [YIB]) programme is aimed at providing youth-owned businesses with an in-depth, hands-on and experiential learning experience of the tech tools available to aid in the growth and development of their businesses. This was funded through the DEDAT SMME Booster Fund in the 2019/20 financial year and 100 participants completed this programme.
A total of 261 informal traders attended the Incubation Workshops and Smartech training programme in the 2021/22 financial year. Of this group, 64% were women.
A total of 1 118 businesses have been supported/ assisted by the Khayelitsha Bandwidth Barn from the 2019/20 to 2021/2022 financial years inclusive.
I-CAN Elsies River Centre
The I-CAN Elsies River Centre is a public access facility which serves as a community-based ICT access and knowledge centre. It aims to help communities to learn, study, create and play by leveraging the online environment through physical infrastructure, the use of high-speed affordable broadband, digital technology and various education and skills development programmes. The centre is run by the Genesis Community IT Initiative NPO.
The beneficiaries of the Centre (the citizens) are mainly residents of Elsies River and surrounding suburbs, but also stem from other previously disadvantaged communities within the wider Cape Metro. Of the 3461 registered members, 1936 (56%) are female.
The Centre offers a combination of free, partially subsidised, and fully funded services to the community. Valuable corporate partnerships forged since the Centre’s inception have enabled expansion of training opportunities, vendor certification and free broadband access for beneficiaries of the Centre’s initiatives.
A total of 11,239 training opportunities were taken up from 2015 to 2021.
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The Western Cape Government is currently working on a new economic growth strategy for the province, which includes in its framework the need for horizontal enablement of the economy through digital transformation and technology. We will provide the member with an update on initiatives in the tech space when the strategy and plan are completed. This strategy is expected to be finalised by the end of the current financial year.
