08
Issue 09
WINTER 2020
I N N O V AT I O N
Getting the jargon JITTERS Long ago, before Covid-19 stole the show, we had the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It’s one of those buzz-phrases beloved of government officials and other chancers who like to brush a thin, with-it varnish over the rickety constructions they pass off as speeches and policy statements, writes Matthew Hattingh
I
t’s a bit like quantum mechanics and the shysters and flakes who borrow its colourful theoretical language and metaphors to give everything from spirituality to management “science” a certain sheen. But there are only so many empty words you can take on any given day. So it was refreshing to attend a Durban conference – barely weeks before the pandemic –
The audience heard how robots were being linked to computers in the cloud as well as to motorist’s smartphones and other on-theground sensors ABOVE: GIDEON TREURNICH OF ROYAL HASKONINGDHV: A SMART TRAFFIC LIGHT SYSTEM WOULD CUT COMMUTING TIMES.
where “4IR” reared its ugly acronym of a head. However, many of those using the term actually had some idea of what they were talking about. They explained to guests at the Innovation Festival – in terms most of us could grasp – how our world, including work, was changing in ways big and small. Some of the speakers were experts in their field, or at the very least more than passingly acquainted with the changes afoot.
The audience heard, for example, how robots (the South African usage here, think lights at intersections) were being linked to computers in the cloud as well as to motorist’s smartphones and other onthe-ground sensors. Gideon Treurnich, of Royal HaskoningDHV, told how the international engineering consulting firm was rolling out just such a smart traffic light system in Cape Town and how it would make
calculations in real-time, on the fly. It would cut commuting times and speed things along in that increasingly gridlocked city. He expected the pilot project would be up and running by the end of the year and confirmed the firm was talking to officials to do the same in Durban. In the past, said Treurnich, Royal HaskoningDHV sought traditional engineering solutions to congestion problems. But building
