Meeting the skills needs of the fourth industrial revolution
31 October 2018
"We need to think of our citizens and what their needs are. We're always talking about smart cities, but why aren't we talking more generally about smart townships and villages? We should be exporting our own intellectual property around smart townships to SADC and Brazil."
These were views expressed by Sidima Ntsangani, head: applications development, SITA at the Public Sector ICT Forum event which took place at the stylish Fusion Boutique Hotel, in Polokwane Westcliff Hotel, on 30 October.
The forum, chaired by Mummy Mthembu-Fawkes, social media and branding strategist, accredited facilitator and business coach, is organised by ITWeb Brainstorm in association with MTN Business, and provides a platform for public sector ICT decision-makers to unpack topics that are key to innovation in service delivery.
Mandla Mkhwanazi, digital business leader of Transnet and chair of the Public Sector ICT Forum, further expands on the concept. He gave the example of patients in deep rural areas, where transport is a challenge, who sometimes spend an entire day waiting in line to collect their chronic medication, only to be told the medication is finished or hasn't arrived. "You can just imagine the cost implications of travelling back and forth to the clinic or hospital to collect the chronic medication," he says.
The solution, according to Mkhwanazi, is a smart machine that will be mobile-driven to enable citizens to register via a feature phone or smartphone.
Other topics on the agenda included:
Cloud computing in government and the need for skills
Michael Moeti, Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, Tshwane University of Technology
Harnessing skills and driving innovation – the role of the hackathon
Sidima Ntsangani, Head of Department for Applications Development, SITASidima Ntsangani, Head of De
Challenges in developing students’ skills in preparation for the Fourth industrial Revolution
Prof Mthulisi Velempini, University of Limpopopartment: Applications Development, SITA
SITA’s cloud initiatives: an update
Elsje Güldenpfennig, HSP&CP Enterprise Architect, SITA
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Sponsor
MTN Business
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A proud sponsor of the Public Sector ICT Forum, MTN Business is focused on growing partnerships with the public sector to help achieve growth and facilitate government's journey from being efficient to being effective.
MTN Business believes that economic growth and the furtherance of government policies to alleviate poverty are inextricably intertwined with digital technology. As such, digitisation is the only way South Africa will reach its objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals. By enabling a digital future for South Africa through state-of-the-art technology solutions, MTN Business provides the tools with which the public sector can achieve its goals and further South Africa's growth.
These solutions include a full portfolio of the technologies needed by public sector organisations to serve their communities, such as Managed Networks, Cloud , Unified Communications, Security and IoT.
For more information, please visit
www.mtnbusiness.com/za