A dinner between the heads of the four Cape universities and the CEOs of major businesses, facilitated by Accelerate Cape Town, was held last night. “The goal of the dinner was to create closer links between industry and academia. We have a lot to learn from the successes in this area of cities and regions such as Boston, Silicon Valley and Munich. This was a first step towards exploring further contacts and possible partnerships,” said Guy Lundy, CEO of Accelerate Cape Town (ACT), a business-led initiative that aims to drive long-term growth in the Cape. “The meeting provided an opportunity to facilitate discussion on how graduates can be retained by business, while the educational institutions found out more about the type of skills business needs and expects”, he added.
Accelerate Cape Town, which hosted the event at the Riboville restaurant in conjunction with the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC) and the National Business Initiative, invited the Vice Chancellors of the four universities (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University of Cape Town, University of Stellenbosch and University of the Western Cape) and 16 business leaders representing some of the city’s largest companies.
Lundy highlighted the links between higher education and city competitiveness. “Many successful cities have created strong links between business and their universities. The Cape has four well-regarded universities, but the links between them and local businesses have been limited. One of Accelerate Cape Town’s key functions is to bring together the most influential stakeholders in the city region to find solutions for long-term growth and competitiveness”.
Nasima Badsha of CHEC was also enthusiastic about the benefits of the meeting , “Because of the Western Cape’s strength in higher education compared with other regions, we believe that this sector should be nurtured and strengthened and that this support will benefit untold other areas”, she said.
There was broad agreement that:
- A culture of learning in South Africa needs to be created, which currently doesn’t exist, and business, government and the universities have a responsibility to do this together.
- Universities must be centres of excellence
- Cape Town has the potential to be known worldwide as a centre of knowledge and excellence
- The universities should be creating more entrepreneurs and encouraging more students to spin off companies and commercialise the work they are doing
- Businesses should be supporting the start-ups that come out of the universities by creating a venture capital culture.
This was a very valuable first discussion in what needs to be an ongoing engagement to create the seeds of a vibrant knowledge economy.
Lundy emphasises that this interaction should be encouraged, as it is crucial in making the Cape grow its knowledge economy “if only to make our city and region one of the world’s greatest places to live, work, study and visit. To be considered a leading business destination, as opposed to just a pretty tourist town, we must improve our collaboration between business and the universities”, he stressed.
