ORT SA hosts talk in Houghton on solutions for economy
HOUGHTON – Seeking solutions on how to fix the economy was top of the list for ORT SA and Wandile Zulu together with other institutions who met at the think-tank discussion.
Recently there has been a global quest to fix economies and deal with unemployment in countries.
Closer to home, the non-governmental organisation, ORT SA, together with the chairman of the Wandile Zulu Foundation, Wandile Zulu, hosted a think-tank for young professionals on how to fix the economy from a fresh perspective.
The solution-based discussion held at ORT SA offices in Houghton required the participants and presenters to identify problems affecting the economy and thereafter provide solutions for those problems.
Zulu said the young professionals should be the voice of the voiceless. He gave an illustration of Botswana who is leading in terms of providing sanitary towels for young girls, which is not the case here in South Africa.
“It is a disappointment to me that women in government fail to push the agenda of giving attention to young girls. We need to be doing something practical in terms of empowering the young people in every way possible,” said Zulu.
He recounted how they had previously given graduates free programming courses and urged the other present institutions to do something about unemployed graduates. He said, “I would like to introduce coding to unemployed graduates and matriculants because it is a skill which one can take anywhere.”
Co-founder and chief imagineer of How We See Solutions, Antony Seeff, said there was a need for talent and people brave enough to start up initiatives. “We need investors, especially in SA, but most people are afraid of the risk involved. One cannot create a start-up all by themselves; they need to be part of the ecosystem which is the government. So, we need government participation and regulation,” explained Seeff.
Entrepreneur, Dan Brotman who started a company locally and created jobs pled with the government to relook at its immigration policies because they hinder progress and investments brought in by immigrants.
“Countries like the United States of America have a high gross domestic product (GDP) directly attributed to migration and its model shows a high percentage of its economy comes from immigrants,” Brotman said.
He suggested that with the pending changes to the immigration policies in SA, the government should work with the private sector when revising the policies. Brotman suggested, “Organised businesses need to use their voices to say what they want to do and present their solutions to government.”
Details: ORT SA www.ortsa.org.za
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