CIO OPINION
CIO
opinion
CIO OPINION
“
THIS ABILITY
TO BRIDGE THE DIGITAL
AND PHYSICAL WORLDS
WILL BE THE NEW GOLD
FOR AFRICA.
//////////////////
SAP Africa Managing Director Cathy Smith
The future of work in
a digital world
The digital age and
the new technologies
it’s brought with it –
Blockchain, Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Robotics,
Augmented Reality and
Virtual Reality – is seen
by many as a threat to our
way of life. However, SAP
Africa Managing Director
Cathy Smith says there is
no need to panic.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
T
he bad news is that the nature
of work has already changed
irrevocably. Everything that can
be automated, will be. We already live in
an age of ‘robot restaurants’, where you
order on a touch screen, and machines
cook and serve your food.
Did you notice the difference? AmazonGo is
providing shopping without checkout lines.
In the US alone, there are an estimated 3.4
million drivers that could be replaced by
self-driving vehicles in 10 years, including
truck drivers, taxi drivers and bus drivers.
We’re not immune from this phenomenon
in Africa. In fact, the World Economic
Forum (WEF) predicts that 41% of all work
activities in South Africa are susceptible
to automation, compared to 44% in
Ethiopia, 46% in Nigeria and 52% in
Kenya. This doesn’t mean millions of
jobs on the continent will be automated
overnight, but it’s a clear indicator of the
future direction we’re taking.
The good news is that we don’t need to
panic. What’s important for us in South
Africa, and the continent, is to realise that
there is plenty of work that only humans
can do. This is particularly relevant to
the African context, as the working-age
population rises to 600 million in 2030
from 370 million in 2010. We have a
groundswell of young people who need
jobs – and the digital age can provide it, if
we start working now.
Make no mistake, there’s no doubt
that this so-called ‘Fourth Industrial
Revolution’ is going to disrupt many
occupations. This is perfectly natural –
every Industrial Revolution has made
some jobs redundant. At the same time,
these revolutions have created vast
new opportunities that have taken us
forward exponentially.
Between 2012 and 2017, for example,
it’s estimated that the demand for data
analysts globally grew by 372%, and the
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