Skills development, access to technology and readiness to adopt new technology are fundamental inhibitors to e-government in SA, says Livingstone Chilwane, managing executive at GijimaAst.
Speaking ahead of GovTech 2006, the State IT Agency`s first annual ICT conference, Chilwane said: "The adoption and assimilation of technology takes time, but experience has taught us that South Africans adapt very well to new technology."
Chilwane, commenting on the involvement of GijimaAst in the GovTech conference, says: "The conference allows us to have dialogue on thought leadership, around the role of ICT in government and around challenges in government, which is of major importance to us as we do a lot of business with government.
"We saw it fitting to participate in order to ascertain what our role could be in helping government, as well as entering into partnerships with local small and medium enterprises to deliver required solutions to the public sector."
Chilwane says he is optimistic that the conference will bear fruit, as a recent, similar conference had resulted in a range of projects being implemented that were initially conceptualised through thought leadership discussions and debate.
"At the last global conference, we were battling to get our minds around new technology, but now we see government taking up technology more and more. The i-Traffic initiative being one example of an initiative that has come to bear."
Chilwane says e-government is a journey. "It`s not going to happen overnight, its going to take us years."
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