Africa is falling behind when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). This is according to the 2020 Government AI Readiness Index recently published by Oxford Insights. But this doesn’t mean that every country across the continent isn’t making use of AI. According to the Index, Mauritius was the highest-ranked African country coming in at 45th outRead more
Many South African businesses aren’t able to access the ICT skills they need to succeed in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). This is according to the South African ICT Skills Survey, which was released in September last year and was carried out by the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) at Wits University, in partnershipRead more
In April 2019, president Cyril Ramaphosa set up the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The 30-member presidential commission was put together to assist government in taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the digital industrial revolution; identifying relevant policies, strategies and action plans to position South Africa as a competitive global player.Read more
This week, Standard Chartered Bank and Microsoft announced that they have entered a three-year strategic partnership to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation via a cloud-first strategy. The digital strategy partnership makes the bank’s virtual banking, next-gen payments, open banking and banking-as-a-service plans a reality. This move by Standard Chartered, and similar partnerships/investments by others inRead more
Cloud computing has long been hailed as a technological disruptor like no other, enabling rapid digitalisation across businesses of all sizes and across all industries. 5G is the next evolution in mobile network technology, building on the already significant benefits of the 4G/LTE networks that proceeded it. In fact, the capacity of 5G is soRead more
COVID- 19 has disrupted the lives and lifestyles of billions of people around the world, with most governments enforcing some form of national lockdown to curb the spread of the virus. Information and communication technologies are playing, and have played, a crucial role in keeping our society functional in a time of lockdowns, quarantines, remoteRead more
The African banking sector has a big problem. This problem, according to a report by Genesis Analytics, is that African banks tend to have a cost to income ratio that is much higher than their international counterparts. Why is this a problem? Well, if the overall cost of providing banking services is higher, then theRead more
At the beginning of 2020, a BusinessTech article declared that 2020 would be the year of 5G. According to the Gianfranco Lanci, corporate president and chief operating officer at Lenovo, who was quoted in the article, the reason everyone is so excited about the 5G rollout is because it is the key to unlocking theRead more
Automation has become a strategic enabler for our department and has proven to be an important asset in my digital toolkit. Today, perhaps more so than ever, it’s important that brands are constantly innovating and, as such, I am always looking for new ways to up productivity and improve processes. I’m already exploring how IRead more
Around 100 years ago, the Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, infected 500 million people. At the time, this amounted to about a third of the world’s population. Today, COVID-19 presents a similar threat in terms of spread and rising uncertainty. One key difference with our current scenario is that emerging innovationsRead more
