Summit TV speaks to Helena Tapper and Kristina Lahde about the joint projects being undertaken by South Africa and Finland to develop the local knowledge economy and reduce South Africa’s reliance on minerals and resources.

Stephan Lamprecht: Welcome to the Intellectual Property Show. On Summit TV we state the case every week for the transformation of our resource-driven economy into a knowledge economy. Finland now has its biggest global investment in the development of the knowledge economy in South Africa, and in the studio I have the pleasure of hosting Helena Tapper and Kristina Lahde on Finland’s role in developing South Africa’s knowledge economy. Helena, why is Finland so involved in South Africa?

Helena Tapper: Finland has historically been involved in South Africa - we supported the end of apartheid in South Africa, but we also now look at South Africa as a country where we could transfer knowledge from our knowledge economy.

Stephan Lamprecht: You are rated as one of the most competitive and innovative societies and you are trying to apply the lessons from that in South Africa…

Helena Tapper: Yes. South Africa is currently the first country where Finland has a large cluster of programmes in science and technology and ICT for development - so South Africa is a case study for us that’s very important in opening up new science and technology programmes…

Stephan Lamprecht: Practically give us some ideas of the different programmes that you have in South Africa…

Helena Tapper: We have four programmes almost running right now. The first one we’ve started is called the Cooperation Framework on Innovation Systems between Finland and South Africa (COFISA) which is the national innovation programme between Finland and South Africa where we are sharing the experience of Finland in building a national and provincial innovation system.

Stephan Lamprecht: That’s very much at a macroeconomic level - seeing how the different instruments should work together, the policy environment and so on…

Helena Tapper: Yes. That’s around how can you use knowledge as resource to enhance economic growth, employment, and individual social development. I think it’s quite difficult for many people to understand what the innovation system is - it’s basically looking at the different organisations or institutions in a society, and their role in actually producing information and collaborating with research and development organisations and how they all work together to enhance the knowledge capacity of a country or the knowledge base.

Stephan Lamprecht: Before we go to the other programmes Kristina you’ve recently arrived in South Africa to head up the second programme that’s called SAFIPA?

Kristina Lahde: Yes. SAFIPA is a knowledge partnership programme on ICT between South Africa and Finland.

Stephan Lamprecht: What are the implications of this programme, and how would you go about rolling it out?

Kristina Lahde: That is what we are finding out now. The idea is to work with existing projects and programmes, also to see if we can help start new ones. The main components are creating applications and services on ICT for normal citizens - the idea is not to target the high end services, but services for normal South African citizens…

Stephan Lamprecht: So to clarify what you would do is to actually make funding available, and co-ordinate collaboration around the development of ICT based services that would be of use to me as a citizen - so for example in education and learning?

Kristina Lahde: Correct. Also, part of the project is to help create a society where this is easier - so we can help on the macro level, but we can also help projects that are trying to create an application let’s say for deaf people...

Stephan Lamprecht: Helena, what are some of the other programmes?

Helena Tapper: We are also supporting your National Information Society Plan (PNC on ISAD) that I understand was approved last year as a national plan to develop an information society. The pillars of that programme in your national plan are e-learning, e-commerce, e-government support to SMME’s and so on. We are funding the programme in Limpopo and the Northern Cape, and we are supporting provincial information society development - so these are case studies, and the first provinces in South Africa where we are looking at how we can actually implement this national plan, and then bring that experience back to the national plan.

Stephan Lamprecht: These programmes are very much focused on ICT? Do you have other programmes beyond ICT?

Helena Tapper: Yes, we are starting a fourth one with Nepad - that’s a Southern African regional programme supporting a research network on biosciences. We are looking HIV/Aids research, fishery, and mushroom research. We are looking at all of those in 12 countries - so that’s building a research network in the Southern African countries - but the hub of that programme is at the CSIR in Pretoria.

Stephan Lamprecht: Kristina, just from your perspective looking at your experience what are the lessons you learned in Finland that are relevant to the South African environment? Finland is very much a first world economy - it’s highly developed - South Africa is a more rural society with a gap between the first and the second economy. How do you intend to apply those lessons to South Africa?

Kristina Lahde: We hope to have some affect on the structures that you have in place - I think in some instances there is not enough risk-taking here. You have to be able to accept failure if you want to really succeed, so I’m hoping to install some of that culture into the projects as well.

Stephan Lamprecht: Helena, what have you learned especially on the COFISA side that’s been running for about two years?

Helena Tapper: There has been a lot of learning exchange - South African experts have been to Finland, and Finnish experts have been here - so I think a lot of information sharing has taken place. I’m really happy looking after these programmes that it’s actually been about capacity building - we are particularly looking at knowledge economy capacity building in South Africa, and there are many initiatives going on and activities taking place - so I think we with these programmes we’ve been able to do some interventions and collaborations that will remain after these programmes end in 2011.

Stephan Lamprecht: So there’s been a transfer and that’s been institutionalised as you mentioned in terms of the culture…

Helena Tapper: Yes, a transfer of knowledge and shared experiences. We are not saying that the Finnish model innovation system is example number one in the world, but we are very happy because the international indicators for example show that competitiveness, transparence collaboration - all of those components for example are in place, and that’s the outcome - so you can actually see the results when you put those in place.

www.cofisa.org.za

COFISA has funding for visits to Finland for knowledge exchange and business collaboration