Local technology companies can expect increased access to procurement opportunities as the Department of Science and Technology (DST) attempts to boost local industries.

As major state-owned enterprises are embarking on large-scale infrastructure recapitalisation and expansion programmes over the next 20 years, the DST say it will increase the participation of local companies in major ICT, manufacturing and engineering technology procurement opportunities.

The DST says its Technology Localisation Programme (TLP) seeks to enhance the capabilities of local companies to allow them to access contracts, create more jobs and contribute to economic growth.

I do not see how this is going to happen - I cannot see the mechanism that is going to make a government manager bring in local services and products. This government has created the phenomenon where local software can only be recognised through labour broking. Certainly the managers will run a mile were experts to look at their designs.

Opportunities under the programme will include the procurement of technology and services for the design and build of MeerKAT and opportunities related to the Square Kilometre Array, if SA wins the bid to host this facility. The localisation of satellite technology within the space science and technology strategy would also receive a boost.

“It's aimed at supporting supplier development by assisting local companies to develop their technological capabilities, and then to use these capabilities to leverage procurement opportunities from the infrastructure-build programmes of state-owned enterprises,” says science and technology minister Naledi Pandor.

The programme will also be aligned to government's Competitive Supplier Development Programme – a partnership between the DST and departments of public enterprises and trade and industry, aimed at improving local technologies.

Ahh, the well known CSDP as implemented by the TLP is going to make a g-man take a risk.

Pandor says the TLP will also identify key industries where departments' institutions, networks and resources would be used to support localisation efforts.

“We're already investing in materials and manufacturing research and technology development. We believe the expertise we have built up around research and technology activities can be mobilised and deployed for the benefit of local companies,” explains Pandor.

She adds that, although the Competitive Supplier Development Programme is driven by state economic enterprise procurement, the DST will replicate the model in other areas of both public and private sector procurement.

“The Technology Localisation Programme is something like a 'Buy South African' campaign. However, the programme is not based on emotion or sentiment. It's firmly based on good products, equal to the best products of international competitors, products vital to our national goals, reputation and wellbeing,” says Pandor.

The comment at the end summarises it well - Red Salamander notes "the DST putting the nations eggs in one basket"

The DST is busy with these "capital intensive but little return" investments and their getting away with it without telling us the specifics. The theme seems to be about things that are out of this planet. Clearly someone who read a lot of space comic books as a child is advising the minister who is still operating as if she has those big budgets at the department of education. The fact of the matter is that the DST has a small budget. If you start spending on big ticket items you are going to have to starve a lot of initiatives (such as the Joule, solar & wind, chemicals and many more) that are better bets than this stuff.

Take a bow Bernie Fanarov?

Sumbandila Images [The Bridle Drift Dam in East London as pictured by Sumbandila, South Africa's second satellite.]

SA received the first live images from its second satellite, Sumbandila, this week.

SA's progression into space started over a decade ago and the country expects to make further strides in this area, says Lunga Ngqengelele, acting head of communications for the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

These images represent just the first development expected from the satellite, adds Ngqengelele.

This is beautiful! Fantastic. Wonderful. I wish we could see the images in high-res!

He says the next step is to use the images to serve many functions in SA and help address certain needs.

“It can help the country in many ways. It can help SA in dealing with climate change, we can detect the movement of people in terms of informal settlements and then agriculturally can determine which land can still be used,” explains Ngqengelele.

The DST says the satellite can collect images during national emergencies, such as floods and fires, and can also map infrastructure and land use, and measure the water levels of dams.

“So the next step just depends on what we want to find out. Based on what the government wants, we will be able to get the images,” states Ngqengelele.

The DST says the satellite carries a secondary communication payload from the Department of Communications, in addition to the camera, since, according to Ngqengelele, government will also use the satellite for communications.

SA now also has the chance to provide images to other countries, just as it had once paid for satellite images that only other countries could provide. Ngqengelele says: “In the long run, we hope to assist other African countries with the satellite and we expect that they will get images from us. Basically, it's an investment for us and it is moving forward.”

Great success

The Bridle Drift Dam in East London as pictured by Sumbandila, South Africa's second satellite.
World Wide Worx Strategy MD Steven Ambrose says: “The pictures are a reflection of South African technical prowess and perseverance despite all manner of obstacles in the realisation of the project. The high-resolution and the fact that these are being received by a South African organisation, from a largely South African satellite, is a great success.

“The main developments going forward will be in the science and research that the satellite facilitates or enables. It also provides impetus for further development in the education arena around space technology and imaging, which will be good for government and industry in SA,” says Ambrose, describing what else should be expected from Sumbandila.

He adds that the success in launching this satellite and now receiving pictures from it puts the country in the “space race” in a small way. It will allow for imaging of SA to a degree that wasn't possible before.

While the Department of Science and Technology's (DST's) budget has been increased to R4.6 billion from R4.2 billion, there has been a rigorous pruning of most of its major programmes, says Democratic Alliance shadow deputy minister of science and technology Marian Shinn.

As a scientist all I can say is not in my name!

Shinn says the DST budget offers more questions than answers. “On the face of it – there is an increase in funding, which is to be welcomed in tough economic times. But much of that funding goes to SKA [the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope], its supporting infrastructure and research chairs. There is significant funding being invested in the Centre for High Performance Computing, which is essential infrastructure for our research community and SKA,” she says.

Hang on - the explicit intention was to make this project commercially relevant. This is an ignominious back-off from this intention. R180 mil plaything for academics is absurd. (Do academics ever use it? The CHPC still has not shown anyone there ganglia. Surely this is what you do for a public service?)

However, Shinn notes that over the medium-term expenditure framework three-year period, there seems to be a rigorous pruning in all of the department's programmes.

“One will need to be briefed by the department to understand which projects are being pruned/cut out, before making a fair assessment on whether this is a good budget in support of the DST's five grand challenges,” she says.

What are these again?

Of particular concern is the pruning of funds to the biotechnology strategy. One of the DST's aims is for SA to be a worldwide leader in this field by 2018. It will be difficult to achieve this if funds are too drastically reduced now.

Another concern is the cuts to the socioeconomic partnerships programme.

“I hope the cuts will not affect the social impact sub-programme, which gives policy and strategic support to smaller organisations and firms applying technology innovations for sustainable livelihoods; or the metals beneficiation and smart materials programmes, which have produced leading-edge product developments suitable for global markets.”

Shinn says the intent to use science and technology for social upliftment and job creation in rural areas has increasingly crept through into this budget statement.

There is mention of identifying “frontier technology interventions that support important labour-intensive sectors such as mining, agriculture and tourism”.

“One is curious about what these might be, particularly in the tourism field, which I don't recall popping up in presentations from the department.”

Shinn also questions why the DST is embarking on some projects, such as the department starting to explore ways “in which innovation can support sustainable development and social upliftment in rural areas”.

This sounds like research into djinii-power.

“Surely this is the responsibility of rural development and land reform? While I believe it is essential for the DST to regularly liaise with other government departments – including agriculture, forestry and fisheries; economic development, human settlements and water affairs – I do not believe that it should become involved in the delivery of technological solutions.”

Shinn accuses the ANC of using the DST's initiatives as an election ploy.

“This emphasis on rural development is an attempt to make science and technology relevant to the ANC's mass of rural voters in an election year. The DST should not jeopardise its long-term strategic goals for electoral quick-fixes that it cannot deliver. There is plenty of existing scientific endeavour available to address most current problems – what's lacking is the energy of various government departments to familiarise themselves with solutions that are readily available and implement upliftment programmes,” Shinn says.

A DST spokesman says science and technology minister Naledi Pandor will address all the issues about the department's budget in her budget vote speech, in April.

I find this news quite depressing - surely there are cheaper wins. Tilting at windmills is surely not a strategy - i.e. inventing an arbitrarily complex problem, and throwing all your resources at it is silly. I find that, the success criteria used in these grandiose government projects get subtlety downgraded over time by the managers. The eventual 'success' is trivial, but the expense is very real.

While I think the research is in principle interesting, I think it is not even wrong. I think that aping programs from a bygone era or following historical principles is pointless. In this day and age, R&D needs to have industrial and economic impact. Teaching a bunch of school kids to program is not convincing.

Of concern is the lack of critical insight journalists have - it seems that the DST double-speakers can fly anything past them.

The following table shows previous lists and the number of systems installed when the list was published. Site Efficiency in the table is SUM(Rmax)/SUM(Rpeak), expressed as a percentage.

This is the Tsessebe SunBlade X6275 and X6250, Xeon X5570 and E5450 with Infiniband QDR/DDR

Our 16 core Tyan (GB Eth + 512 GB + Win HPC) does 43.7490 GFlop - that is 2.73 GFlop/core compared to 9.7 GFlop / core. We have 68.6% efficiency - I think it is due to the network being pedestrian.

OK CHPC you win on performance, but I bet we beat you on cost per GFlop and number of customers per GFlop :)

I guess that the CHPC will be out of the Top 500 in June.

Sonas system will scale to 14 petabytes

IBM has introduced a network storage array based around its supercomputing platforms, and aimed at medium and large enterprises.

The Scale Out Network Attached Storage (Sonas) system uses between one and 30 storage 'pods' containing a storage node, a storage controller and 7,200 or 15,000 drives. These can be scaled up to a claimed 14.4 petabytes of storage.

"The equivalent of eight times the information that exists in all US libraries combined is created every day," said Doug Balog, vice president of disk systems at IBM.

"Companies need to cost-effectively store that data, and rapidly locate it and provide ubiquitous access to it instantly. Sonas addresses these needs and provides clients with the right scalable solution."

The technology behind Sonas was developed as part of IBM's General Parallel File System, which the company has used on its supercomputing platform for around 10 years.

Sonas also comes with an integrated Tivoli Storage Manager backup/archive client, up to 256 snapshots per file system, and support for modern Raid systems and network protocols, including Common Internet File System, Network File System, Secure Copy Protocol, HTTP and File Transfer Protocol.