The floodgates have opened. HP are the voortrekkers of equity equivalents ek se. The front page of this morning's Business Day announced the news boldly - HP gets BEE equity exemption. Its equivalent plan is to set up the HP Business Institute.
The institute, to be launched in November, is expected to train about 300 small black information technology (IT) businesses over seven years. It will upgrade skills, bring unemployed graduates into the sector and provide for job placement . The first class will begin in February.
You'll also notice that the programme is focused on skills development, and I am willing to bet that these skills will be largely orientated around selling or supporting HP products. This is the only way to do it. Train people to sell your products and help them become successful.
This is very good news because it means that the dti at least knows how to evaluate these applications and in some cases actually award them. And with Lionel October leaving the department there isn't much left there to be confident about.
Perhaps the beleaguered department would like to adopt Delton van Rooyen's witty ode to the humble postman. Delton was on the JHB leg of Idols (Kath and I have done nothing but watch this show for the last week), and he performed a song called "we deliver whatever it takes". Click on this link and go to page 2 and then select "The Mail Nurse".
If you happen upon Cliff Jennings first then you would do well to watch his "I wanna" video. There is also an hysterical introduction to Cliff (and a few other clips) on YouTube
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