Networking equipment supplier and network management for the Internet company Cisco has unveiled a R215-milion investment to set up an information and communication technology (ICT) innovation hub, in Pretoria.

The Cisco Innovation Hub Technology Centre (CIHTC), a public–private partnership, will be an advanced technology incubation centre, aimed at fostering and developing local skills, intellectual property, entrepreneurship and solution development capabilities in the local ICT sector.

Cisco says that these initiatives are expected to drive a R1-billion gross domestic product effect over an initial five-year period.

Cisco South Africa MD Steve Midgley says the company is investing in this initiative to ensure that South Africa has enough skills, solution creation capabilities and intellectual property to benefit from broadband when the “revolution really kicks off”.

“South Africa is on the brink of entering a broadband boom.

“This will change the way people live and work – giving the public sector and business the opportunity to gain significant efficiencies, to drive productivity enhancements, to achieve cost reductions and to gain access to new market segments within their existing business models. It will also create an enabling platform from which new business models can be created.”

The CIHTC will create a mini- mum of 200 direct jobs and 800 indirect employment opportunities.

Initiatives, such as an InnovationLab, a global talent acquisition programme, the Cisco Netversity, an entrepreneur institute and a software development programme will be based at the new 3 000-m2 centre at the Innovation Hub.

The InnovationLab focuses on developing technology solutions for common business challenges in South Africa. It has been running since the beginning of the year and is developing solutions in education and crime prevention.

The Cisco global talent acquisition programme (GTAP) aims to tackle the growing shortage of skilled networking professionals in the country. The GTAP has absorbed the first group of students to create high-level network entrepreneurs at a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) level in an accelerated form. The company aims to create a minimum of 120 CCIE-level network engineers over five years for the local market.

Another skills development programme, Cisco Netversity, aims to create some 150 network design engineers through an experiential architecture and design programme.

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