Corporate social responsibility not only for big cheeses

In cheese terms RedButton is not the biggest around. There are plenty of local ICT companies who could out-cheese us by showing you their monthly spend on paper cups for the water fountain. At the recent Cape IT Initiative (CITI) AGM we were glad to hear that with our recent and upcoming efforts we are increasingly doing what is reserved for le grande fromage. We are giving back not only to shamelessly promote it on our blog, but also because we feel its an obligation to give back to our roots.

Our roots are at the University of Cape Town and collectively we have spent over two decades at the institution, most of that time was spent in the Computer Science department. Those were good times, but they also cost the tax payer a lot of money, as does all tertiary education as the government sponsors a significant portion of the cost. The mentioned cost is not our only reason for a desire to give back, its because its good for the local ICT industry and hence good for everybody. We believe the interaction between academia and industry is shockingly limited in the ICT field and bucking this trend should be a priority for SMEs as well as the larger corporates.

Life is naturally not easy for SMEs and as a startup mere survival is on the top of the agenda. There is little or no time for activities outside of core business. This was evidenced in the Frost & Sullivan presentation at the recent CITI AGM where their research has shown that the larger the company size, the greater the degree of interaction between academia and industry. One might think that is obvious, but it is not necessarily the case, for example there are plenty of universities that incubate high-tech startups. So what have we done? Nothing that will make headlines anywhere else but this blog. We have simply given a colloquium and promoted the virtues of post graduate studies. If those talks contribute to just one student starting or being involved in local companies like Thawte or Mosaic Software (now Postilion) its mission accomplished as far as we are concerned.