But as the pressure to deliver mounts and significant successes fail to materialise, key facilitators like the department of trade & industry are rejigging the machinery in an effort to make it more effective.
The recent merging of the Godisa Trust, the National Technology Centre and the Technology Advisory Centre to form the Seda Technology Programme (STP) is just one part of this process.
Each of these independent entities focused in a different way on promoting technology transfer and incubation of innovative, hi-tech companies. By combining their service offerings within STP, it is hoped that this service will be more effective and efficient than the sum of its parts.
In principle the move makes sense. Government's small enterprise development agency (Seda) is building significant capacity to provide support and services to start-up companies - hi-tech or otherwise. Seda has a growing network of regional centres (increasing from 36 to 164) to assist entrepreneurs with first-level business planning.
There are concerns, however, that as the department of trade & industry (DTI) chases targets of creating 2m jobs and 300 000 small enterprises, Godisa's emphasis on developing hi-tech companies with their own intellectual property and competitive products will be diluted.
And if this is not so, then the concern is that the bureaucracy of centralisation will stifle innovation.
Charles Wyeth, previously head of Godisa and now head of STP, is aware of these concerns. "Government has been concerned about the number of different agencies and departments involved in small enterprise support. We believe support for hi-tech start-ups is important, but we don't believe we can provide technology intervention on its own - it needs to be part of a one-stop, all-inclusive support package."
However, as a protective measure, he says, STP has been ringfenced within Seda. "We will retain our independence and focus," he says. "Even better, we have just one board, and eight managers who are accountable for delivery."
For now the 11 incubators within the Godisa Trust will continue to function as normal. However, the pressure is mounting for the incubators to deliver a specific number of "graduated" companies each year and to become, at least partially, financially self-sufficient.
Godisa was formed by the DTI and the department of science & technology (DST) to nurture hi-tech start-ups in a variety of sectors. Since 2001 it has launched 11 incubators around the country in areas like biotechnology and life sciences, medical devices, chemicals, construction, floriculture and IT. It has enjoyed modest success, developing 103 small companies over the years. Over 80% of these companies, says Wyeth, are still in business.
The National Technology Transfer Centre helps small businesses apply appropriate technology to their production processes to enhance productivity and quality.
The Technology Advisory Centre was formed to help entrepreneurs and inventors navigate SA's tangled web of services, funds and support.
The benefit in bringing the different services together, says Wyeth, is the synergy. The biggest challenge facing these incubators is that inventors and entrepreneurs walk into the incubator without a clear idea of what their business is. "They should rather go to one of the Seda business centres and after that seek the technical expertise."
Wyeth also intends launching a number of new incubators this year, and next year. New incubators include base metals, essential oils and biodiesel.
Though Wyeth is at pains to reassure the incubators that nothing will change, the issue of financing, risk and return is worrying for some. If government's role is to nurture hi-tech start-ups, then surely it must accept that higher risks mean that returns are not guaranteed?
Not entirely.
"We want to see the incubators, their clients as well as the province or local municipality shoulder some of the responsibility for funding," says Jayesh Ravjee, the senior manager for business incubation at STP.
Charles Dettman, CEO of EgoliBio and acting CE of Acorn Technologies, notes that local and regional governments seem to be more inclined to support small business development agencies that focus on well-established technology sectors. "Emerging sectors, like biotechnology, will not deliver direct economic returns as quickly as sectors like IT. Not only is the technology less well-established, but the time from conception to launch is typically much longer for biotech companies than IT companies. There is a need to provide support to bioscience ventures in the early stages of the innovation process, long before they reach the point of revenue generation.
"Fortunately, STP acknowledges this concern."
But this, it seems, is just the beginning of the re organisation of hi-tech business support at the DTI.
It makes sense to ensure that government funding instruments, like SPII, Thripp and the DST's Innovation Fund, work more closely with (or preferably within) Seda.
"We don't want entrepreneurs who just survive, we want entrepreneurs whose products will replace imports," says Ravjee. "To achieve this all the instruments must be acting in concert and right now there is not enough communication between them."
But moving the home of funding instruments such as SPII is not likely to sit well with those who currently manage them.
Meanwhile, the incubators themselves are going through a period of consolidation and reorganisation.
Two Gauteng-based incubators, Softstart Trust and the Bodibeng Technology Incubator, have merged to create SoftstartBTI.
They were both focused on assisting high-potential ICT businesses and found themselves overlapping each other.
EgoliBio, another of the Godisa incubators, is seeing the benefit of changes of a different sort. Originally focused on commercialising third-generation biotechnology products (which involves manipulation of the genetic make-up of organisms), the incubator has broadened its focus.
Its initial focus was not practical because SA's young biotech industry is not developing fast enough to create a pipeline of clients for the incubator. Instead, Dettman has expanded the net to include start-up companies developing first and second-generation products. These are based on less sophisticated technologies, such as using extracts from indigenous plants which can be incorporated with relatively little refinement into cosmetic or nutraceutical products. This strategy, he says, is much more appropriate to a market like SA's.
When it comes to third-generation technology, Dettman suggests importing it. "We can't afford to wait until the output from our own biotech R&D pipeline is sufficient to consistently populate the incubator with third-generation start-ups. It makes sense to seek commercially viable technology elsewhere, as one way of accelerating the growth of our biosector."
The sentiment may not be popular across science and government, but it does reflect the fact that across the innovation chain, people are looking for better ways to achieve 6% economic growth - without sacrificing a focus on science and innovation in business.
