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Tech hubs seen as drivers of digital innovation

23rd October 2015

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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An explosion of successful digital technology hubs is leading to the replacement of large corporations as the launchpad for new innovations.

Digital technology hubs were increasingly successful as they spawned the creativity, skills development and required incubation and support for the stimulation of innovative ideas, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Joburg Centre for Software Engineering director Professor Barry Dwolatzky said at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s fifth yearly conference, in Pretoria.

“Technology hubs are where [innovation] is happening,” he told delegates.

Increasingly, what was needed was an environment to encourage innovation and a platform to develop the skills needed in a digital world, along with a centre at which to meet like-minded entrepreneurs, to brainstorm, to work – together or alone – and create concepts and ideas, Dwolatzky noted.

With the rise of successful digital technology hubs worldwide, Wits now aims to facilitate the establishment of such an environment with the linking of the university and the Tshimologong Precinct digital technology hub, in Braamfontein.

The digital innovation zone, which is under development two blocks from the university’s main campus, will also straddle IBM’s new IBM Research laboratory and is aligned with other critical success factors, including its proximity to potential customers, youth, workplaces and good universities, in addition to physical and digital infrastructure.

Wits is currently converting a number of old buildings, including a former nightclub, into a hub comprising meeting spaces, server rooms, computer labs and retail outlets, besides others.

Microsoft, IBM, Telkom, Barclays Africa, the City of Johannesburg and the Technology Innovation Agency have partnered with Wits to develop the new innovation hub.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Online Managing Editor

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