12th CPSI Public Sector Innovation Awards Ceremony

The 12^th CPSI Public Sector Innovation Awards Ceremony, held on Friday 31 October 2014, was an epitome of excellence in public sector Innovation. The ceremony was graced by the Minister for Public Service and Administration, Mr Collins Chabane, MP. In his key note address, the Minister reflected on innovation as the main attribute in the many successes we see in public service delivery.

The Jojo Diesel Tanks were crowned the 2014 overall Innovator of the year for their contribution in service delivery innovation.

They were chosen from the four main categories winners.

Altogether 129 projects were enrolled for the 2014 CPSI Public Sector Innovation Awards.

Below is a table showing finalists for the 2014 CPSI Public Sector Innovation Awards in terms of their respective categories:

Category A	Province	Name of the project
Innovator of the Year	Limpopo	Diesel Jojo Tanks
Innovative Partnerships in Service Delivery
Winner	Gauteng	Community Food Production Units
Winner	KZN	Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital
1st Runner up	Mpumalanga	Caring for Girls
2nd Runner up	Gauteng	Learn-not-to-Burn
3rd Runner up	Gauteng	LEGO Project
Category B
Innovative use of information and Communication Technology (ICT) for effective service delivery
Winner	KZN	Digital Pen for mHealth
1st Runner up	KZN	Traditional Affairs Pastel System
2nd Runner up	Gauteng	GAPA
3rd runner-up	IEC	Election Mobile Application
Category C
Innovative Service Delivery Institutions
Winner	Limpopo	Diesel Jojo Tanks
1st Runner up	RAF	RAF on the Road
2nd Runner up	KZN	Safe Anaesthetics
3rd Runner – up	Limpopo	Dietetics Creche Outreach
Category D
Innovative enhancements of internal systems of Government
Winner	Gauteng	Case Management
1st Runner up	Gauteng	Pharmacy Automation
2nd runner up	Gauteng	ESSP
3rd runner up	Limpopo	CODE

The Minister also conveyed the Special Ministerial Awards in which he was awarding exceptional individuals and teams that deserve recognition. The nature of these innovative initiatives, are such that they do not fit into any of the categories.

The recipients of this year’s special awards were individuals and units whose exceptional work has had an extraordinary broad impact within the public sector, and, as is the case with two of our recipients, celebrate the inventiveness of ordinary citizens to improve service delivery.

The first recipient of a Special Ministerial Award were the Innovation and Knowledge Management unit in the Office of the Premier, Eastern Cape as an example of innovation driven at a provincial level with a cross-cutting impact on all the departments. Their work has earned them recognition as the public sector innovation ambassadors.  Over the past 5 years, this unit has helped to unearth no less than 7 CPSI finalist projects, including the 2011 Innovator of the Year and AAPSIA (All Africa Public Sector Innovation Awards) overall winner in 2010.

The second recipient was the Service Delivery Improvement Unit in the Department of Correctional Services. The Department of Correctional Services has, over many years, continued to innovate to improve service delivery, as is evident from the 4 finalist projects over the past five years.

The third recipients were two young entrepreneurs Reabetswe Ngwane and Thato Kgatlhanye of Rethaka. These two young women have earned local and international accolades for their simple but innovative initiative, aptly named Repurpose School Bags. In their own words they define their company, Rethaka, as a radical idea of uncovering opportunities and inspiring a compassionate, bold and tenacious kind of creativity to uplift communities with ideas. They further say (I quote) “We use innovation as a means to social change and choose to zig while others zag.”

They recycle plastic shopping bags turning them into textile material; this is then made into school bags. Each school bag has a solar panel that charges as the child walks to school. The solar panel is later removed from the school bag to become a solar lantern that has up to 12 hours of lighting that can be used for studying.