RSA's TIA - the resurrector of innovation

South Africa's new Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), which has been formed to support the commercialisation of local research and development, was formally launched at the end of October with a budget of R410million (approx GPB 43mill) according to this report in Creamer Media's Engineering News. The news is hot off the heels of the enactment of RSA's legislation designed to commercialise innovation from public funding.

TIA chairperson Dr Mamphela Ramphele said that the agency would strive to turn "the valley of death" between research and product commercialisation into one of "resurrection"

The legislation and TIA have high ideals but borrowing from Tennyson's account of the famous doomed charge does sound ominous:

 Half a league, half a league,

  Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

  Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns' he said:

Into the valley of Death

  Rode the six hundred....

The Afro-IP LinkedIN Group has 99 members and is calling for its centurion. Details here.

South Africa: content war continues with hunger strike

Readers may recall a story that broke a few months back describing how the content industry in South Africa formed a coalition to protest against the national broadcaster's IP and payment policies. The coalition staged an uprising which played a big part in forcing SABC board resignations and them begging for a government bail out. The story continues with a hunger strike.

"Accusations, counter-accusations, hunger strike, protests, name-calling, defiance, denialism, late payments, delayed procurement, deferrals and axing. These are just some of the fundamental characteristics of the local content ‘battle for survival' currently being fought between the SABC and the TV Industry Emergency Coalition (TVIEC). And it is turning nastier day after day." (Issa Sikiti da Silva).

People have learnt how to fight for what they think is right in RSA. Whether a hunger strike is appropriate in this situation seems inappropriate to question.