The hum of tech-savvy businesses and communities

The third and final panel discussion, moderated by Faith Mangope, focused on the use of smart technologies to help shape the future sustainability of SA, focusing specifically on the economic resilience that is enabled by homegrown innovation. But what exactly do sustainable businesses really mean on the ground for South African companies?

Arnold Netshambidi is CEO of Phambano Technology Development Centre, an NGO that provides sustainable technology-related solutions to civil society organisations across Southern Africa. During the Covid-19 pandemic the organisation was providing training to civil society organisations to enable their people to work from home.

It won’t be easy to resolve the digital skills gap, particularly for civil society organisations who lack sufficient resources, he said. “The private sector has the capacity. The challenge is to bring the private sector and civil society organisations together.”

Khethiwe Nkuna, responsible business executive at Accenture in Africa said the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has the potential to resolve some of Africa’s biggest challenges. However, to realise its benefits we need an intentional, collaborative effort to ensure the private sector works with civil society organisations, she said.

Accenture is committed to making a difference through social impact programmes, empowering individuals and improving lives. Accenture’s Skills to Succeed initiative empowers people through skills development, entrepreneurship and job opportunities to participate in a more economically inclusive world. The business has worked with a handful of NGOs over the past five years, resulting in small pockets of excellence. Despite an obsession with quality and making a sustainable impact, Nkuna conceded that what the company is not getting right is scaling. “We recognise that we need to be more proactive and use data analytics and predictive software to predict the digital skills that we will need in the future.”

The challenge for many businesses is that as soon as they have upskilled their people, they stand the risk of losing them to international opportunities. Nkuna said that it is important to embed purpose into every aspect of your business if you want to attract – and retain – millennials to your business. At the same time, businesses need to clearly articulate how young people will progress, develop and flourish within the business. “We need to think differently about how we manage talent,” she said.

Increasingly, SME’s are shifting away from conventional ways of doing business to incorporate digital channels, said Joseph Ndaba, the 4IR Commissioner at the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Commission.

However, many small businesses struggle to know how to use these new digital technologies. “Despite the many benefits technology offers the country, we continue to have a legacy culture when it comes to technology. Blockchain technologies, for example, will stop the practice of ‘brown envelopes’, so they are not being encouraged by government,” he revealed, adding that government is also not creating an enabling space to implement digital technologies.

There is a perception, even amongst community leaders, that 4IR will destroy jobs. The result is that many people fear both technology and the 4IR. Ndaba said we need to change this narrative and educate people about the potential of artificial intelligence, including the job opportunities that will come out of it and other modern technologies.

Zweli Vilakazi, chief financial officer at BCX said that the high penetration of mobile phones in SA - many of them smartphones –and an extensive fixed network, provides an opportunity for small business owners to access the cloud and digital technologies. Cloud also offers cybersecurity features. “Many of the barriers to entry for small businesses have been reduced by mobile technologies and digital platforms,” he said.

There has been a shift in recent years with a growing number of young women looking to the technology sector for career opportunities. We need to understand the potential for technology to provide communities with greater access to services.

The business sector – particularly the ICT business sector – needs to reach out more to communities, he said. Vilakazi added that the private sector has a keen interest in ensuring SA succeeds as a country and as an economy.

Concluding the event, master of ceremonies Gugulethu Mfuphi said this year’s Directors Event raised a number of P’s: policy to drive change; the need for partnerships; profits to enable these changes; and people, with skills highlighted as a major concern. Encouragingly, while many of SA’s challenges appear insurmountable, there are resolutions to many of the pressing problems we face.