The Minister in the Presidency and chairperson of the National Planning Commission (NPC), the Honourable Jeff Radebe. (Image Source: enca.com)
South Africa is ripe for digitisation. This was the feedback received from the Vision 2030 conference held in Johannesburg.
According to The Minister in the Presidency and chairperson of the National Planning Commission (NPC), the Honourable Jeff Radebe, key to taking up the opportunities presented by digitisation is the involvement of the private sector in taking ownership of the NDP.
“Now, more than ever, we need partnerships between government and business to take our country to a different level.”
I too am of the view that private sector needs to take up digitisation because whether we like it or not, the world we live in today is no longer the same. The most dramatic of these changes is worldwide connectivity via the internet. Every week more human beings are being connected via the internet so much so that by 2020, there will be 5.4 billion mobile users, representing 70% of the global population. Compare that to 5.3 billion people that will have electricity, 3.5 billion that will have access to running water, and 2.8 billion people that will own cars by 2020.
For businesses, this means that new value chains will emerge, competition will increase and toughen as new challengers and new business models begin to rise. For the taxi industry, Uber – a software company has created a new business model forcing them to re-think their business models. FinTechs are forcing the financial sector to either disrupt or be disrupted by digitisation. With that in mind, to attract a rise in foreign direct investment to 30% by 2030, which is the Government’s Vision 2030’s target, public-private partnerships will need to be anchored around human development and underpinned by digitisation.
A great example of digitising through public-private partnership is the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project – a revolutionary and ground-breaking research project which will see digitisation being applied to astronomy on a scale never done before. Cisco South Africa have embarked on a strategic investment program with the Department of Science and Technology (DST), following executive discussions in 2011 with the Minister of Science and Technology (DST). Cisco’s investment contribution to this project exceeds R60 million. The SKA is a natural extension of digitisation bringing together people, processes, data and things to change outcomes and pioneer research in optical transport and big data – and South Africa will be at the forefront of these exciting developments.
A challenge however is how public-private partnership will include SMEs and most importantly, start-ups who have been a great source of digitisation. Perhaps the solution is collaboration. Allowing platforms for SMEs to collaborate with corporates while maintaining their own distinctive philosophy, to share their innovative technologies and at the same time gain access to a large corporate client bases and global opportunities. We are at a point where we can act, rather than react, to the opportunity digitisation holds for South Africa and ensure that the National Development Plan is implemented in time for the fast approaching 2030 deadline.
By: Venon Thaver, Chief Technology Officer at Cisco South Africa