Transcription of opening and closing remarks by Deputy Minister Buti Manamela during the engagement with the brightest young minds at the Innovation Hub, 14 July 2016, Pretoria
· Firstly let me start by acknowledging the brightest young minds who are the most important people here today. I would also like to thank the CEO of the Brightest Young Minds (BYM), Mr Dhiren Govender for agreeing to have this engagement. We are looking forward to engaging with the innovative ideas which I understand are long term projects.
· I would also like to acknowledge the CEO of the Innovation Hub and thank him for agreeing to host us. My visit to the Innovation Hub is long overdue and this is not the last time that we are coming here.
· The representative of the CEO of the Centre for Public Service Innovation, Mr Pierre Schoonraad. The Chief of Staff at Barclays, Ms Samantha Wilkinson, quite an active partner to Brightest Young Minds who is excited about solutions from the brightest young minds. It shows that the cooperation between government and the corporate sector would take our country forward.
· Both I and the Minister in the Presidency got very excited when the BYM chose to focus their summit on the themes of the National Development Plan (NDP). We got excited because there is this notion that for the NDP to succeed, it solely relies on the shoulders of government. We strongly believe that it is an interplay of all sectors of society that will ensure that we drive the NDP – in particular on the shoulders of young people.
· The process of coming up finally with a plan was a process that involved all sectors of society, from the National Planning Commission which comprises of individuals who represent different sectors of society. Engaging with Parliament, Civil Society, Trade Unions, youth organisations and the private sector, that interplay means that we should not only end with the development of the plan but should also go further into implementation of the plan.
· In fact what the plan forces all of us to do, is to leave that mentality that government is the solution to all of our problems. It basically empowers what the plan refers to as citizens to be at the center of driving the change that is envisaged by the plan.
· Government is but in my view, the weakest without all the other sectors if we are to realise the implementation of the NDP. This is why this project is key and why we are quite excited in collaborating with the Brightest Young Minds and the commitments made earlier by the Innovation Hub in ensuring that your innovative ideas become a success.
· More importantly we have just concluded a successful National Youth Month. That is one of the reasons why I could not make it to the summit. I was nonetheless very excited about what I heard was happening at the summit, I also wanted a share of what transpired at the summit, especially the outcomes.
· What happened throughout the youth month in my engagements on different platforms was the generalization of who South Africa’s youth is. When you open the newspapers, listen on Radio, watch TV channels or read on social media, you get an idea of a youth that is hopeless and a youth that believes solutions can only come from protests in the streets. A youth that believes that if they burn down schools and universities they would actually get what they want. A youth that believes that what happened in 1976 was a picnic compared to what youth should do in 2016 to effect change. There are other generalisations around youth being more vulnerable to crime and other social ills and do not necessarily want to be part of a better South Africa.
· In fact what I have been seeing throughout the youth month is if you repeatedly follow the media you would actually believe that South Africa would shut down tomorrow and the keys will be handed over to some or other Saint. BUT the messages that we got from young people – the majority of them – is that they are quite hopeful about the future. They understand that there are challenges we are faced with in this country. They however believe that to be pessimistic about South Africa would in essence be working against their own future.
· I think what this project – which is part of many projects by young people who I meet daily is an illustration that not all young people are hopeless about a better South Africa. Many young people really believe in Project SA. They believe that if the government or corporate sector, Black, Indian, Coloured, White, business person, artist etc. If any of these people fail, Project South Africa fails.
· I’m quite confident that having received 110 ideas and having had four of those to be elected for the finals. Many others who also contributed and participated, they believed that they in their own way they can contribute to Project SA and take the National Development Plan forward. That on its own shows that there are many more young South Africans who are quite hopeful about the future.
· We always say that the challenges that South Africa faces are unemployment, inequality and poverty. I want to rephrase them differently today and say on your shoulders lie the solutions and commitments towards ensuring that we tackle these three big challenges that South Africa faces.
How do we ensure that we build a prosperous society where there is equality and more importantly where the majority being young people are unemployed? It is though such ideas, through entrepreneurship and through investing into these ideas that we can get young people to be at the center of the solutions.
As I said earlier and continue to say, government alone cannot solve all these challenges. We need each and everyone in this room and the many other young people who are part of Project South Africa and contribute their bit in ensuring that we take South Africa forward.
Let’s hear how you want to take South Africa forward.
Thank You.
CLOSING REMARKS
I want to say three things in appreciating the work that has gone into all these presentations:
Firstly this shows the extent and depth of ideas and innovations that are there to tackle social problems in such a way that we don’t look at a single approach to tackle social problems. But we look holistically to tackle social challenges and we design solutions to tackle those challenges. Many of these not only deal with coming up with ideas but also attend to the need for social entrepreneurship in dealing with triple challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty. Standing on the shoulders of giants – looking at existing programmes and how to make all of those better. For me it displays the extent of thought but also the commitment to resolving the challenges.
Secondly, I was of the view that young people would be saying they are going to get into entrepreneurship and they are going to make money and this is the kind of funding they want from government. For me the WOW factor is that you see government and the private sector as a partner to help implement the innovative ideas.
The last thing is our commitment, working with the various government agencies and government departments to come and be part of these innovative solutions and ensure that these ideas come to fruition. For me what is quite critical is creating that platform for you and government agencies to interact on the solutions to our challenges.
What we always say in the National Youth Policy 2015 - 2020 is that young people are not looking for a hand out but a hand up. We are that hand up that will create a platform for you to be able you to realise these ideas.
The Presidency and the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation may not be the line function departments of government but we can and will use our coordinating role to ensure that we help you realise these ideas.
So thank you very much to all those who played a role in ensuring that we have these ideas put together.
I wish you all the best and I can see that you have pulled out all stops to make sure that your ideas speak to us. I must promise you that we will help you in any way we can to ensure that these innovative ideas are realised.
Thank you very much.
