Education vs innovation?

A good place to start is one very close to my heart, as I believe it underlies many of the other critical aspects to making lasting changes - education!

As a nation, this is one of our largest challenges. We have an abundance of creative, energetic young individuals who have amazing ideas that could change the world... if only they knew how.

CIDA has managed to bridge this gap by revolutionising the tertiary education model for developing countries.

I was very fortunate to attend a meeting at CIDA City Campus in 2001, where I was part of a group that saw the inner-workings and met one of the early drivers of the process - Taddy Blecher. Work commitments kept me from making the contribution I wanted to, and I ended up missing out on something incredible - who would've known how it would impact society.

Lesson learned - incredible opportunities come along all the time - don't let them pass you by!

However, education remains one of the greatest opportunities in South Africa. But how do you provide a solid foundation from an early age to children in disadvantaged communities? Well, this is a challenge in any community... but having found a nursery school which provides meaningful input, I'm interested to see if there is a way to roll this out inexpensively, while providing suitable rewards for the teachers and educators involved. There must be a way, and I'll keep you posted on my findings.