The ambitious East City Design Initiative (ECDI) – aimed at creating an inner city hub for design innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in Cape Town – took another step forward when key movers and shakers met for the ECDI Symposium on 11 and 12 May.
The ECDI, which is managed by Creative Cape Town, has as its vision, the creation of a leading African environment in the East City within the next ten years.
The initiative aims to showcase design excellence, to incubate emerging talent and to enable new innovations to develop in this creative hub.
The ECDI has seen the creative, business, academic, non-profit and government sectors interacting on an unprecedented level in a bid to develop design in the city and wider afield.
The ECDI project which has a range of stakeholders including government, universities and design and other civil society and business bodies has been supported in the business feasibility phase by the Provincial Government of Western Cape’s Economic Development and Tourism department (PGWC Econ Dev). The symposium was an important element of the feasibility study.
A key objective of the symposium was to consider how an innovation hub focussing on design, media and ICT will proceed.
Among the questions addressed was the role of the “triple helix“ of government, business and academia in the initiative and what sort of research agenda the innovation hub should develop.
Another key question is the role of the hub in supporting provincial and local government work in promoting economic development, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Also under the spotlight were questions of how to form a closer relationship with academia and business and necessary incentives to gain support for the initiative.
A number of important speakers from government, academia, ICT ,design and civil society spoke including: Joanne Johnson (PGWC Econ Dev), Mansoor Mohamed (City of Cape Town: Economic and Social Development), Andrew Boraine (Cape Town Partnership), Prof Ivan Turok (HSRC), Prof Stan Ridge and Prof Larry Pokpas (UWC), Prof Edgar Pieterse (UCT: ACC), Prof Mark Swilling (Sustainability Institute), Nasima Badsha (Cape Higher Education Consortium) Mel Hagan, Prof Johannes Cronje (CPUT: Faculty of Informatics and Design), Dave Marais (Innovation Hub), Porky Hefer, Y Tsai, Heath Nash, …XYZ, Kobus Meiring, Grant Blackbeard, John Sachs, Bryan Ramkilawan (designers and entrepreneurs), Erica Elk (Cape Crafts and Design Institute) Jenny Mckinnel (CITI), Chris Vermeulen (Bandwidth Barn), Stefanie Viera (Cape Fashion Council), Bernadette Isaacs (WC Furniture Initiative), Peter Theunissen (Cape MIC), Prof G-J van Rooyen (Stellenbosch University: MediaLab). Speakers included international guest Nick Leon (Design London).
The programme included walkabouts of the East City, a visit to the City Hall’s Spier Contemporary 2010 exhibition and a special Cape Town Design Network event.
The ECDI Symposium recognised that the project is supported by stakeholders and has a range of opportunities for the triple helix partners – and that it comes at the right time.
It is a project with significant importance for growing our creative industry sector as a major part of the City of Cape Town’s economic strategy and makes it relevant for our city’s development and positioning. Key presentations by Pieterse and Swilling in particular suggested that the research agenda of such an innovation space would have to look very carefully at first the economic and spatial imbalances in the city and secondly focus strongly on sustainability challenges.
Incubators are vital and economic development support is needed for emerging businesses. A spatial master plan, that does not pigeon hole the project spatially or by discipline, and an action plan to implement the project are needed – all of which are part of the business feasibility report due in February 2011.
It was also recognised that the project was on the go and happening with a number of key agencies already in the area and the proximity to transport, cafes and to educational institutions making the area an important nexus. One of the exciting proposals made by designers was for a Design Museum proposed for the area. A report will be produced in the next month and will be placed online together with presentations.
