Author: Bilal Kathrada

Their behaviour was appalling. I stood in front of the class, trying to teach a difficult but important lesson, desperate for the students to understand it. But no one listened. I addressed a young woman at the front of the room who was smiling affectionately at her cellphone. She looked up at me with a confused expression on her face and blinked as if she had just awoken from a dream. I had begun to encounter more and more of this in my classes. People constantly distracted by their cellphones, making teaching impossible. What made it difficult in this case was that there wasn’t much I could do. There was no principal I could report these learners to, nor was contacting their parents an option. These were not schoolkids. They were a group of data analysts from an investment firm. I could not escalate the problem to the group’s supervisor because he was one of the attendees at my training. During the break I asked a young man if he found my lessons boring. “No way, we love your training, and really learn a lot,” was his response. I was totally confused, and wondered how they had managed to learn anything at all when they were not even paying attention. His next words were a great revelation to me, and radically influenced the way in which I looked at technology. “We’ve already been through your content on YouTube yesterday.” Of course. My YouTube tutorials. Not long after that, I began lecturing Java coding at a private tertiary institute. My students were low achievers who barely made it through matric and couldn’t get into universities. On the other hand, Java is a difficult language to grasp. My problem was getting them to understand the concepts and complete their coding projects. Day after day they would come with their projects incomplete. I could see they were as frustrated as I was. I decided to conduct an experiment based on my experience with the data analysts. I knew each of my students had cellphones, and that the institute provided wi-fi in the common areas. I made video recordings of my lessons and uploaded them to YouTube. I then asked my students to watch the videos before coming to class, so that they could focus on doing the coding projects in class under my supervision. The idea caught on, and my students were loving it. The experiment was a massive success, and they performed well. My tutorials are still online, and to date have attracted as many as 75 000 views. Tiema Muindi, a journalism lecturer, has taken the concept further. He teaches at a low-income college and is faced with the same challenges, with the addition of very large class sizes. Out of necessity he decided to see if he could overcome some of his teaching challenges using his cellphone. He began to record his lessons using his phone, and sending them to his students via WhatsApp, which uses less data than YouTube, and is hence more cost-effective. He also sends them notes on occasion. He is very active on the groups, answering questions through text, diagrams and even voice notes. The concept caught on, and his students are not just enjoying his lessons, but performing well. Busisiwe Khawula teaches English as a second-language at Kwasanti Secondary School in St Wendolins, Pinetown. In her literature classes she found a lot of her time goes into reading, translating and explaining the prescribed books, leaving little time for class discussions. To overcome her problem, she decided to do voice recordings of herself reading and explaining the stories, and to make these available via WhatsApp and other means. In this way, students will be able to listen to the stories out of class, and engage in discussions in class. These examples are enough to make one wonder if the decision by so many schools to ban cellphones was a wise one or one borne out of haste and a desire for quick results. Either way, in doing so we are not just depriving our students of amazing learning opportunities, we are setting ourselves up for a huge logistical nightmare in trying to enforce the ban. Students will find ways to get those phones into classrooms. A learner uses his tablet in the classroom.

Technology is wildly overrated. As a person who has spent most of his life surrounded by technology and who makes a living through technology, I constantly see people making the mistake of placing too much confidence in the power of technology. I am not saying technology is bad, or useless. Nothing is further from the truth. What I am saying, is that if we think technology is the cause or the solution to what are essentially human problems, then we are really overestimating its power and headed for disaster. Technology cannot solve human problems. A young person who lacks focus and is easily distracted, will not suddenly become a productivity ninja because she bought an iPad and downloaded productivity apps. A student will not suddenly become attentive and excited about learning because his cellphone has been taken away from him. In both cases, the problems and solutions do not lie with technology, but within the people themselves. Yet, we still find people developing new and “revolutionary” technologies that promise to solve serious problems, but in reality solve nothing. Case in point: Nissan recently unveiled boardroom chairs that, at the touch of a button, automatically arrange themselves neatly under the boardroom table. While this is an impressive feat, it also raises a huge concern, not about technology, but about human behaviour. Taking a closer look, this technology is actually compensating for bad manners and a serious lack of discipline, where people fail to replace their chairs after a meeting. Do we really need technology to accomplish something that is as effortless as pushing a chair back into its place? On a similar note is a robot that was recently demonstrated by a Japanese company funded by Toyota, that basically picks up after children and neatens up their rooms. The technology in the robot is nothing short of impressive. However, we really need to ask if we will be doing our kids any favours by absolving them of their responsibilities – or are we nurturing bad behavioural patterns? As the human race, we’ve done extremely well for ourselves in the past century, and are far better off than our forefathers were. Thanks to scientific and technological advancements, we are better-educated, enjoy a better quality of life, are more well-fed, work less than they did, and have much more leisure time. There is a caveat: we are now dealing with a unique set of societal problems. We often complain that people, especially the younger generations, are constantly distracted, lack empathy, have little to no discipline, and have a sense of entitlement. What we fail to realise is that these problems are a by-product of our immense progress, and that these are human problems that need human solutions. Technology never was the problem, and never will be the solution. It is merely a facilitator, and can be used for good or bad, or in the cases above, to patch up deep, underlying issues, which is tantamount to taking pain killers to cure a brain tumour.

The first text message may have been sent in 1992, but my friends and I were texting each other way back in 1984. We were not genius child prodigies who invented some futuristic texting device, on the contrary, we used plain old pen and paper to send hand-written text messages, complete with emojis, to each other. We did this to pass the time during Geography lessons. Our teacher, who was famous for his monotonous monologues, was unbearably boring and we desperately needed to find some way to endure his lessons. We needed a distraction, and so we started texting each other. Looking back, I know we should have paid attention in class, but kids are kids. Fast forward nearly four decades and little has changed. Kids need to be constantly engaged and entertained, or they will be easily distracted, or “zone out”. On the other hand, find something that really draws them in, then it is extremely difficult to pull them away from it. Ask any parent whose kids play video games. For me, this is what lies at the heart of the debate around whether or not cell phones should be banned at schools. Arguably, the biggest motivator in the case against cellphones is that they are a distraction in the classroom, leading to poor test results. Learners are unable to concentrate in class, and teachers are unable to do their work over the buzzing and chirping of devices all over the place. Learners tend to focus more on texting and posting to social media than on their teachers. Obviously, this is a cause for concern among teachers, many of whom have called for a total ban on mobile phones. This is a polarising topic, with heated debates taking place on a number of levels: education departments, school authorities and parents all weigh in on the topic. A growing number of schools are succumbing to the pressures and implementing complete or partial bans. France has implemented a national ban on cellphones at schools. What added fuel to this debate, was a 2015 research paper, by Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy, titled Ill Communication: Technology, Distraction & Student Performance, which showed that schools that banned cellphones saw an average of a 6.4% increase in standardised test results for kids aged 16. The study, which was conducted in four cities in England, found that lower-performing learners benefited most from the ban, as they showed a much higher improvement in test results than their high-performing classmates. This led to the overall conclusion by the researchers that banning cell phones at schools “could be a low-cost way for schools to reduce educational inequality.” The anti-cellphone lobbyists naturally jumped on this research, citing it as evidence that cellphones should be banned, but in doing so they totally ignored an important point that the researchers made in the conclusion to the paper: “However, these findings do not discount the possibility that mobile phones could be a useful learning tool if their use is properly structured.” In other words, cellphones are not the problem, but the way we use them is. This view is echoed by Dr Craig Blewett, a senior lecturer at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, and founder of Activated Academy, a start-up dedicated to teaching teachers how to effectively use technology in the classroom. “It’s not the phones that are the problem or the solution,” according to Dr Blewett, “but how we teach with the technology. Applying a correct approach can radically transform our students’ learning experience. “Students, whether at university or school, consume content, create content and communicate with their phones. Ignoring this, or worse banning it, does not help our cause. Rather, the cellphone opens up exciting opportunities for engaging our students in meaningful learning.“ Dr Blewett has experienced this repeatedly in his line of work. Recently, a fellow university lecturer, who was experiencing high absentee rates in her lectures, took his advice to use cell phones as a teaching aid. The outcome was totally unexpected. “It was incredibly insane. They all showed up. There were people sitting on the floor. In front. I couldn’t believe it.” This episode proves, more than anything, that students are eager to learn, but are looking for a fresh new approach to education, one that takes into consideration their learning needs and preferences. I find it very strange that, in the midst of the heated discussions, no-one has actually bothered to ask students what they felt. If we fail to focus on them and cater to their needs, then we might just be missing a golden opportunity to educate them on things that really matter, in ways that they can actually relate to. Kids will always be kids. Take away their cellphones, and they will find other ways to distract themselves, even if it means resorting to plain-old pen-and-paper texting. We should, instead, solve the real problems by asking ourselves why they are so distracted in class. Next week I will discuss some amazing examples of individuals who are making a huge impact by incorporating cellphones and other technology in education.

Let me start off by clarifying a huge misconception: a blockchain is not the same thing as Bitcoin. They are two very different technologies, even if they are somewhat connected. Saying that a blockchain and Bitcoin are the same thing is like saying that Gmail and the internet are the same thing. Far from it: Gmail is an email service provider, like Yahoo or Hotmail, while the concept of email in general is a use case of the internet. Email is an application that runs on the internet, and, just like email, the internet has many other use cases, like instant messaging, social networking and video streaming. Yet, no one says that WhatsApp, Facebook or YouTube are the internet. They are simply applications that run on the internet. Similarly, Bitcoin is one of many different types of digital currencies, also known as “cryptocurrencies”. Just like email is one of many use cases of the internet, cryptocurrencies are but one of many potential use cases of a blockchain. You can think of Bitcoin and its siblings as applications that need blockchain technology to function. What exactly is a blockchain? It is similar to a database in the sense that it stores data. But the resemblance ends there because the ways in which a blockchain and a traditional database store and retrieve data are fundamentally different. To understand the difference, let’s consider an example. Let’s say you are about to purchase a second-hand car. Naturally, you will need to verify certain information about the car, such as the seller’s proof of ownership, the car’s service and repair history, and any accidents the car has possibly been in, and the extent of the damage. At present, obtaining this information is quite a mission. Different information about the vehicle is kept by a number of different organisations, and on separate, siloed databases. To get detailed and accurate information, you would need to bounce between a number of organisations like the police, the licensing department, service and repair agents and insurance companies, among others. Often, the companies holding some of the data have closed down, and there is no way to access the data any more. Then there is the issue around data security and integrity. Databases are not completely hack-proof, but a far greater threat than outside hacking is insider-tampering, which is an ever-present threat in most government departments. By paying off the right people, it is possible to doctor just about any records. As a result, most people ultimately opt to either go on trust, or to purchase from dealers only. But who’s to say the dealers themselves have accurate information? Either way, buying a car is very risky. Now imagine if you could eliminate much of the risk associated with buying a vehicle by having all the information you ever needed to know about every car at your fingertips. You could see every transaction that took place relating to the car from the day it was manufactured until the present moment. By simply entering the chassis number, you could get access to minute details about the vehicle.This information will come from a super-secure, tamper-proof facility. Additionally, the facility will not be owned by any individual, organisation or business, but rather by an entire community, so it is publicly available without the need to rely on slow, inefficient, costly and often dubious middlemen. No doubt, this will most likely transform the used car industry and might even reduce car theft. But having that type of information readily available will also transform a number of other industries such as finance, education, health care, real estate and food. As far as the food industry goes, imagine being able to scan a food item and immediately knowing if it is indeed kosher, halaal, vegan, organic or fair trade as advertised, because the entire history of the item and its ingredients, from the source to shelf, is readily available. This is all possible with a blockchain and is the reason why there is so much hype about blockchain technology.

Electric vehicles could potentially transform society. Rising petrol prices are making life difficult for many South Africans, with the poor suffering the most, as always. When petrol goes up, so does everything else: food, clothing, medicines, you name it. Yet, technology has a perfect solution for that will completely eliminate our reliance on petrol. Electric vehicles, or EVs, have been around for some time now, but only recently have they become mainstream, thanks to EV manufacturer Tesla, founded by South Africa-born Elon Musk. Since its inception, Tesla has not only made giant strides in EV technology and lowered production prices significantly, it has also made EVs desirable. The Tesla Model S, for example, is an exceptionally beautiful and luxurious car, comparable with most luxury German models. But the Model S is not just a good looker; with the power to accelerate from 0 to 100km/* in just 2.5 seconds, it is a beast. The Model S is also fitted with some of the most cutting-edge technology ever built into a car, with some reviewers calling it the “best in-car tech ever”. There are no buttons and knobs on the dashboard. These have been replaced by a massive 43cm touch screen that controls nearly every aspect of the vehicle. The autopilot mode gives the car self-driving capabilities, while the auto-raising suspension and retractable door handles increase efficiency. The advanced parking sensors can tell you exactly how far away the object behind you is. And if that is not impressive enough, pressing a button on the key will make the car pull itself out of its parking spot and come to you. But the real miracle of the Model S lies under the bonnet. Its super-car performance comes from not one but two three-phase induction motors, which provide independent traction to the front and rear wheels. In other words, the front and rear axles each have their own engine. This is largely possible because the watermelon-sized engines are much smaller and lighter than traditional, internal combustion engines. The twin engines are powered by more than 5000 lithium ion batteries, similar to those used in cellphones and laptops, except that they can carry the same charge as 7000 cellphones. This gives the car enough power to drive for up to 560km on a full charge. To fully charge the vehicle takes about nine hours when the car is connected to a 240-volt power source. This means that a person doing a daily 20km commute to work will only need to charge the car once every two weeks. Tesla claims that their batteries have the highest energy density in the market, with the lowest cost per kilowatt, which basically means that the batteries are cheaper to make, and can store more power, than any other battery. This gives the car its incredibly long driving range before the need to recharge. What about the running costs? In short, the Model S is cheaper to run than an equivalent petrol- powered car. Consider this: The Tesla Model S is rated at about 20 kilowatt hours per 100km, which translates to around R17 per 100km at an electricity rate of 86c per kilowatt hour. After the October 2018 fuel price hike, a Toyota Corolla would cost R104.21 to travel the same distance. This is a huge saving. EV technology is still in its infancy, and with more research and development, their efficiency will definitely increase, while production prices will decrease. Added to this, solar power technology is making huge strides, and in time an average-sized house might be able to generate its own electricity by coating its roof with cheap, efficient solar cells. In this case, running a family car would cost almost nothing. The one major drawback of electric cars is that they are currently very expensive, with an entry-level Model S priced at nearly R1milliion. At that price, it is totally out of reach for most South Africans. But there are ways around this. The US government provides a $7500 (R106500) subsidy on EVs, while Norway goes even further: not only do they waive the acquisition tax, which generally amounts to around $11000, as well as the 25% VAT on electric cars, but EVs also receive other perks such as exemption from road tolls and ferries. The results are evident: the US and Norway are two of the world’s leaders in EV adoption, with Germany, China, Iceland, Japan and the UK. The terrible irony is that EVs are virtually non-existent in the countries that need them the most, even though very few technologies can rival them in their potential to transform societies. Cheaper transportation means lower prices, extra disposable income and a healthier economy. Couple EVs with emerging solar technologies, and we could soon have vehicles that cost next to nothing to run thanks to an unlimited supply of clean energy from the sun. South Africa could easily become Africa’s leader in EV adoption, and the benefits could very quickly filter down to all South Africans, especially the poor. The question is, what is holding us back?

There are about 1 billion devices connected to the internet, and this will increase to 50 billion by 2020. That’s a massive jump in just two years. Where are those extra connections going to come from? Hint: not humans. First, let’s put the number 50 billion into perspective. If every human being on the planet had three devices each: a smartphone, a tablet PC and a laptop, and connected each device to the internet, that will add up to about 21 billion devices, which will still leave 28 billion devices unaccounted for. Which devices are those? The Internet of Things (IoT) is a phenomenon where things that were not traditionally connected to the internet, are now being connected. Things like vehicles, clothing, machinery, furniture, farming equipment and livestock are being connected to the internet, and in exponential numbers. It is these devices that will account for the vast majority of internet connections in the future. This huge leap from a billion to 50 billion devices will place a lot of strain on the current mobile networks, which are already reaching their full capacity. What’s more, the IoT devices are entirely reliant on a fast, secure and uninterrupted internet connections to function. There is zero allowance for down time, and if these devices happen to lose connection for even a few seconds, it could spell disaster. Imagine a self-driving car hurtling along the highway, suddenly losing connection to the internet. Or a delivery drone, on its way to drop off medicines to a hospital, going off -line.They will be driving blindly. This is where the new generation of wireless networks, the 5G networks, comes in. 5G stands for the fifth generation of wireless mobile networks, and is a successor to the 4G networks. 5G provides significant advantages over 4G. It is a hundred times faster than 4G, which means that a two-hour movie that takes around six minutes to download on a decent 4G network, will take three-and-a-half seconds on 5G. Added to that, 5G has one fortieth the latency of 4G networks. This means that, whereas the 4G networks take just under 50 milliseconds to respond to our requests, 5G networks will take just one millisecond. In the real world, this could mean a self-driving car taking a half second less to make a crucial decision. However, there are some drawbacks for 5G, such as infrastructure requirements. Rolling out 5G will require a complete infrastructure upgrade on the part of the network operators, which will be costly. Operators will need to recuperate the costs somehow, and the consumer will probably have to foot the bill via higher data rates. As if South Africa needs more expensive data right now. Data costs are high and out of reach of the majority of the population who, according to studies, cannot afford more than 100 megabytes of data per month. This may be great for WhatsApp and some social media activity, but is not enough for serious applications. With cheaper data we could make the internet more accessible to all South Africans, but we could also tackle many of the country’s socio-economic problems.

You’ve heard of outsourcing, but have you heard of “outsourcing 2.0”? According to some sources, this is the next stage in India’s outsourcing evolution, and is making waves in the global digital economy. Dr Sunita Maheshwari is the co-founder of India-based Teleradiology Solutions, a company that provides radiology services to medical centres around the world. It works like this: a medical centre does an X-ray, CT scan or MRI, and then sends the images via the internet to Maheshwari’s team of qualified radiologists. The team use advanced graphics processing software with built-in artificial intelligence to do a reading of the scans, and provide feedback within minutes. This service is dramatically improving patient care, especially in remote areas that do not have access to radiologists by making highly qualified and experienced radiologists available at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time specialist. ScanCafe is another Indian start-up. They provide a document and photo-scanning and touch-up service to clients in the US. People send their printed documents or photos to ScanCafe’s US depot, and these are then shipped to a processing centre in Bangalore. There, the documents and images are scanned, saved onto disks and then sent back to the clients in the US. The company also offers an audio and video tape digitalisation service. ScanCafe also employs a small army of highly skilled, professional graphic designers and video editors who touch up photos and videos at an additional cost. These two businesses may be completely different in nature, but they have one thing in common: they provide a new kind of outsourcing, a kind of outsourcing on steroids, or what people are now calling outsourcing 2.0. What makes digital outsourcing particularly attractive is that, unlike most other industries, the barriers to entry are low. With just a moderately powerful computer, a good internet connection and a specialised skill set, anyone can start their own outsourcing business. What is more, outsourced work is fairly easy to find on sites like Freelancer.com. Countless Indian start-ups began this way. This raises a big question: Why is South Africa not riding the digital economy wave like India, Brazil, Malaysia and the northern European countries? There are massive opportunities out there, and we seem to be missing out totally. We have a large workforce, fairly good technology infrastructure and, unlike most of the countries listed above, a relatively low cost of living. So why are we lagging behind, when countries like India are already evolving into the next stage of outsourcing? For me, the answer lies in two recent encounters I had with two young people. The first was an intelligent youngster I met on a flight from Cape Town recently, who was studying accounting at the Stellenbosch University, but was passionate about software development. In fact, he was exposed to coding in high school and had spent over 100 hours developing a video game with a friend. But when he applied to study computer science at university, he was rejected because his maths results were not all that good. What an injustice. The second was a young man who, despite having an IT degree, was working as a cleaner. His story was all too familiar: he had gone to dozens of interviews, and the response was almost always the same: he had no marketable skills. These two encounters pretty much sum it up for me. Where decades ago other countries encouraged their youth to focus on the digital economy, we still turn youth away from studying IT on trivial grounds. Where others started preparing their youth with world-class education ages ago, we have youth with degrees who cannot find employment. It is not my intention to berate our universities, but South Africa is bleeding economically, and we need radical change, and fast. In the first quarter of this year, more than 150000 people entered the job market. The economy is struggling to find a place for the majority of them, and the unemployment rate now stands at a gut-wrenching 26.7%. The stakes are high. We may be the most industrialised nation in Africa, but when it comes to ruling the digital space, that is open for the taking; and there are some strong contenders who are quietly going through a digital revolution, such as Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria. Are we going to be serious contenders, or will we miss out?

Not many people associate a glass of milk with advanced technology, but in reality there is an extraordinary amount of cutting-edge technology at play to get that glass from the farm to our tables. For example, UK-based tech company DairyMaster produces MooMonitor, which is a device that connects cows to the internet. Dairy cows are extremely sensitive creatures, and the slightest illness or excitement can stress them out and adversely affect their milk yield, requiring farmers to monitor them 24 hours a day. This is fine when you have a handful of cows, but how do you monitor hundreds of cows simultaneously? This is where the MooMonitor device implant comes in. It is a tiny implant that constantly monitors each cow, keeping a close watch on its health, movements and stress levels. It uploads vital health data to a server with specialised artificial intelligence software that looks for irregularities in the cow’s health and behaviour. The instant it detects something amiss, like an irregular heart rate or a cow moving sluggishly, it alerts the farmer and pinpoints the cow’s exact location. The implant also tracks the amount of milk each cow produces over its lifespan, because a slight drop could point to a health issue. MooMonitor is just one example of what is known the “internet of things”, commonly abbreviated as IoT, which is a phenomenon where things besides computers and smartphones are connected to the internet. Machinery, furniture, clothing, vehicles, kitchen appliances – and now cows – are now connected. Computer chip manufacturer Intel describes IoT as “a robust network of devices, all embedded with electronics, software, and sensors that enable them to exchange and analyse data”. In other words, these devices are able to talk to one another and exchange valuable data which is then used to make real-world decisions. An example of IoT is the “smart home”, which will be able to adjust itself for your optimum comfort. As you drive home after work, your cellphone will determine your mood by analysing a number of things like your calendar, your heart rate and even the way you drive. It will then communicate this data to your smart home, which will use this and other data to prepare itself for you. Let’s say it has been a warm day and you’ve had a rough day at the office. You are totally exhausted and somewhat stressed. Your smart home will kick into action: your air-conditioning system will adjust itself to an optimum temperature, your home entertainment system will play a soothing track and your espresso machine will mix you a delicious “pick-me-up”. At your front door an artificially intelligent facial-recognition camera system will recognise you and disable the home security system and unlock it. The concept may be a vision of the future, but there are aspects of it that are already in existence, and have been for some time. For example, most security and camera systems allow us to monitor our properties from anywhere in the world with nothing more than a smartphone with a browser. These are IoT devices. IoT has been around for nearly two decades and has gained incredible momentum in the past few years, thanks to smaller, more powerful computers and faster internet. But despite its phenomenal growth and huge impact, IoT it is still considered an “emerging” technology whose full potential we are far from tapping. IoT is big, and getting bigger. And it has some incredible economic ramifications. The International Data Corporation predicts a total worldwide spend on IoT of $772.5 billion (R11.3 trillion) this year alone, and expects a sustained worldwide spending growth rate of 14% until total spending peaks at $1 trillion by 2021. This is huge by any standards. But not only that, IoT is also a major driver of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. IoT, and by extension the Fourth Industrial Revolution, presents tremendous potential for economic growth. The question is, will South Africa position itself to tap this potential? Will we ride the wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or as in the previous industrial revolution, will we largely miss out? No one really knows the answers, but there are certain indicators. We can start with a few questions like: do our schools teach kids computer science skills? Do our kids learn about coding, robotics and IoT? Do our universities produce software developers and engineers who are ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Are our graduates ready to compete in a global arena? Is there a thriving start-up community focused on IoT? If our answers are in the negative, then we are in serious trouble.