Public service and administration minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi this morning stressed the importance of public, private partnerships in innovation.
She was speaking at a breakfast event to mark the preparations for the fourth T-Systems Age of Innovation awards.
Fraser-Moleketi explained that people in the public sector should also see the sector as a learning organisation, adding that government is looking at ways of investing incrementally in innovative initiatives.
At the event the minister officially launched the awards that recognise innovative excellence, and also announced the appointment of "innovation ambassadors", tasked with the job of flying the flag of innovation throughout the awards process.
The ambassadors were chosen from representatives from previous winning institutions.
"As a government, we value innovation and see it as important for our country and our collective development," she said.
Fraser-Moleketi added that the government`s emphasis on the implementation of policy requires the public sector to think more creatively about how it can use limited resources, and how it builds effective partnerships, particularly with the private sector, and how it uses new institutional forms to address service delivery challenges.
She called on both public and private sector innovators to submit ideas for assessment, stressing there was only a five-week window within which to do this. The closing date is 13 June.
"It is important that we stress that innovation is fundamentally about people - they generate ideas, suffer through the failures, and are the beneficiaries of the success stories. We want to make sure that innovation is not seen as simply technology or academic papers, which have very little meaning to most South Africans," Fraser-Moleketi stressed.
At the same event, Fraser-Moleketi also announced there will soon be a formulation of an innovation advisory committee, which will render services during the awards process.
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