Author: Bilal Kathrada

“Fear, resistance, skills shortages threaten SA’s 4IR progress – ITWeb The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings with it a wealth of opportunities for South Africans, and yet, the technical skills 4IR needs are some of the scarcest skills in SA. Kagiso Trust, one of South Africa’s leading development agencies, recently did a comprehensive research report to aid the understanding of what is required for an economically active citizen during this time of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The research was focused on answering the main research question which was:  What are the critical factors to advance an economically active citizen during the time of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?  According to the report : Insights on Embracing Technology and Digitization To fully exploit the opportunities presented by digitisation and ensure the survival in the new digital age, companies need to undertake the immense task of preparing for a digital future by transforming their organisations towards digital maturity. Digital maturity is a state in which the companies achieve digital congruence where the company strategy, structures, culture, processes, people and digital capabilities are aligned towards a set of company goals. South Africa’s industries and opportunities are some of the reasons it ranks top amongst African countries. The opportunity for South Africa to align itself as a leading economy lies in the ability of both the private and public sectors partnering with each other in the exploitation of digitisation and technology. Despite this, South Africa, which is the leading African country on the GCI, is amongst the lowest adopters of technology. Thus, the country needs to improve the participation in digital technologies introduced with the Fourth Industrial Revolution which presents great opportunities for increased economic growth and societal progress (Baller, et al., 2016). In South Africa there is an urgent need for all citizens to embrace technology as the future for the digital culture to improve and mature to leverage the opportunities brought by the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is a non-negotiable imperative for the development of an an economically active citizen during the time of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 2. Responsive Education System A responsive education system can be described in terms of its adaptability to the needs of the society it serves at a point in time. Education system was identified as one of the ten critical factors in the development of an economically active citizen during the time of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The focus is on understanding the views on the state of the current education system and then proposed relevant improvements that will strengthen the education system to produce citizens who will be able to leverage the opportunities associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Central to the responsive education system is the autonomy of the learner that must be developed through some kind of legislation to enable the learner to take responsibility for their own development. 3. Short-term education and training The findings of the study confirm that the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires a fusion of several skills and multidisciplinary knowledge.These are skills that need to be harnessed by South African citizens so that they are able to effectively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is synonymous with the high speed of change and this requiresurgent intervention for the currently semi-skilled employed who can be negatively affected by its technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotics. The same interventions are required for the high level of unemployed youth who seek to be economically active. As such, there is a need for short-term empowerment of the citizens. There were three routes that were identified to acquire the first principles knowledge and skills. 4. SETA Fourth Industrial Revolution Focused Re-alignment of the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) as they are already well positioned to manage and create learnerships, skills-based programmes, among others, for all the occupations in South Africa. These SETAs need to be overhauled and be made to focuse their offering on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The government can put certain measures in place whereby they make sure that the employers, in collaboration with all the other stakeholders, produce courses and programmes that focus on the 4IR within the next 24 months and make access available to the general public. This can be the same approach that government has successfully used to launch and maintain programmes such as SETA programmes and programmes such as the extended public works programme(EPWP) which then can ensure that it creates a situation where there is a focus on developing the skills the country really needs. 5. Strengthen Recognition of Prior Learning Certification Strengthen the recognition of prior learning. Many people have acquired experience through on-the-job training whilst in employment and are thus able to apply their knowledge effectively. However, there is a lack of certification to this effect and this needs to be enhanced so that these people can prove their competency. 6. Accredit Skills Development Fast Tracking Programme There is an urgent need to promote fast-tracking programmes; there are certain fast-tracking programmes that are already available and producing good results such as Harambee, WeThinkCode and others. However, they are not well co-ordinated and the backlog of skills within the country requires that these fast-track programmes are recognised, regulated, certified and people can have certification of the skills offered through these programmes. These are some of the elements that can quickly be put in place to make sure that the skills gap and the first principles knowledge are achieved for citizens within a short space of time. These programmes within the SETAs vary in length from a few days to two years for the WeThink Code course. These programmes can fill the skills gap within a short time. This is critical, as already explained, there is a need for people to be re-skilled as many jobs will be changed or re-invented, especially at the semi-skilled level and many jobs will be lost through automation. 7. Medium and Long Term Education and Training For the medium and long term, there is a need to restructure early childhood development (ECD), strengthen the basic education curriculum making Science, Technology, Mathematics and Innovation (STEMI), as well as entrepreneurship education, mandatory and to revise the curriculum to be cross disciplinary. 8. Maximise the window of opportunity at Early Childhood Development Firstly, there was a view that early childhood development is used for educational purposes so that the window of opportunity for children while they are still young being stimulated can be optimised. This should include incorporating the ECD into the Department of Basic Education, with the Department of Social Development playing a critical role. This will ensure that the ECD is educational, rather than being an after care facility because parents are not there, which is the case in most places, especially in the rural areas, and townships in South Africa, and this would require some major overhaul. 9. Curriculum Content Review There is also an urgent need for the primary and secondary school education curriculum to make STEMI courses compulsory. This will be an improvement from the current standard where mathematics numeracy is compulsory, as this is not adequate for preparing learners for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. STEMI is central to the future. In addition to this,entrepreneurship education must also be compulsory to enhance entrepreneurial intent and provide grounding for an entrepreneurial career. This will ensure that in South Africa, entrepreneurship is being inculcated at a young age, and children are exposed to the possibilities of self-employment in addition to being employed. This is critical to improve the potential of SMEs. “Educational development wise, make technology a compulsory subject, entrepreneurship a compulsory subject, teach our kids about coding and everything about technology.” IPP4 This is critical to ensure that the learners are ready for the future, instead of pushing through a quantity of learners who might be unemployable in the future. “High school curriculum needs to assess future potential opportunities to channel the potential to the career path at a gr9 stage instead of pupils choosing easy subjects just to pass matric.” IAP2 The main advantages for restructuring the school’s curriculum, according to the respondents, will be that more people will be empowered and be able to participate in the economy actively, they will develop thinking skills, and thus be technologically savvy. The respondents further indicated that schools must focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and the focus of education needs to include technology and entrepreneurship as mandatory subjects. Also critical is to ensure that coding and programming are part of the curriculum at school. “What we also aim to do is to introduce coding and robotics as basic or school course, so that citizens have future work available to them. We are also aware of the concept of technotopia such as we see in ‘The Venus Project’ in which robotics obviates the need for work.However, we believe that is a long way away.” IGP14 For students to be innovative during the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is critical that they have all the right resources and be exposed to the right technological systems that will develop them as well as educate them. Exposure to technology will give them the basic training and skills and put them in the correct mind-set to actually have a clear understanding of what the 4IR is all about. The respondents indicated that if the students have access to computers and smart phones, they will be on the right track to becoming more innovative and relevant during the time of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but what is the point of having all those gadgets with the high cost of data? They further indicated that learners need access to cheap data and Wi-Fi to help them surf the internet and gather all the information necessary. The respondents strongly believe that if the learning time was extended and the teachers made sure that after every lesson students have a good and clear understanding of the work, that could lead to relevant educated students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In addition to giving lessons, the teachers must also be knowledgeable about what they are teaching the students and be able to explain and apply this practically. Education systems curriculum restructuring must create a module for technology as early as primary school. Children must start learning about technology at a very early stage so that by the time they get to university, they already are knowledgeable and have had enough exposure to technology. It is important that the way schools educate or teach changes to prepare individuals for the future for them to be able to apply knowledge and understanding and not just memorise information and apply as per the textbook, as is currently the case. The respondents also suggested that the students should be taught to know and understand their skills at an early age so that by the time they get to tertiary level they know how to apply them in the future. 10. Strengthen and leverage Universities of Technology (UOTS) and Technical and Vocational Education and Training(TVET’S)  The Universities of Technology and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET’s) are practically based institutions and they are already set up with a focus on skills, engineering and all the other related subjects, that is what they were traditionally intended for in the first place: artisan and technician education. Everywhere around the world people use this leverage, especially universities of technology. Countries, such as Japan and Singapore, have those institutions driving the outcome for practices both entrepreneurial and for ensuring that science and technology-related employment is created, and as such, this is an opportunity for South Africa to ensure that the universities of technology are strengthened so that they can effectively play a fundamental role within society within the economy to really drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is about the automation of things in which technology plays a major and pivotal role. The respondents see it as critical that the education in UoT’s and TVET colleges is strengthened and developed. More technical schools and tertiary institutions must be implemented to train and educate the students. Read more on their website : https://www.kagiso.co.za/hub/research-report/

I often wonder if science fiction writers give any thought to the impact their works will have on the science of the future. Do they write merely to entertain, or do they intentionally write weird, otherworldly material to tantalise real-world scientists into mimicking their work. Either way, the truth is that, lately, an astonishing amount of science fiction has been finding its way into the real world. Things considered science fiction just a decade ago have become commonplace. Talking computers were science fiction a decade ago, but now nearly everyone carries a talking computer in their pockets. Similarly, the X-Men series was introduced by Marvel Comics back in the 1960s as a science fiction work. The X-Men are a sub-species of humans living among us who have enhanced abilities. There are X-Men (and women) such as Professor Xavier and Jean Grey, who can read people’s minds; Magento who can bend metallic objects with his mind, Wolverine whose body can rapidly heal itself from any wound in a matter of seconds, and dozens of other X-People with strange abilities. These people have been given their powers thanks to genetic mutations, giving anyone with such mutations the designation “mutants”. In the comics, no one really knows what caused the mutations to take place or how only certain people were affected – it seems they happened randomly and by accident. While scenarios such as the X-Men comics were the stuff of science fiction in the past, there is a new technology that can potentially make it a reality, and there is a strong chance that within a few years we will have a sub-species of humans living among us who have enhanced abilities, just like the X-Men. But unlike the X-Men, these abilities will not be a product of random occurrence and chance, but something that is deliberately designed and implemented in a lab. The amazing and groundbreaking technology is known as “clustered, regularly interspaced, short, palindromic repeats”, more commonly known by its acronym “Crspr” (pronounced “crisper”). Crspr is not exactly a new technology – it has been around for million of years inside bacteria, who used the technology to defend themselves against invading viruses and other foreign bodies. Crspr was discovered in the 1980s, but we only worked out how it works and, more importantly, how to use it to edit genes, as recently as 2017. Since then, scientists have been working to understand the finer details of this technology and how it might be applied to humans some day. Their learning was accelerated, thanks to the Human Genome Project, an international research effort that is dedicated to understanding our genetic make-up – how many genes we have, their functions and sequence – using ultra-powerful computers and artificial intelligence. Our genes are a blueprint of our physical makeup. They contain information about every part of our physical selves, from how our cells are formed and how they function, to our physical appearance. Our physical traits such as body-type, height, skin colour, eye colour and hair colour are all determined by our genes. We inherit our genes from our parents, which is why we have characteristics of both parents. These genes are formed at conception, and remain unchanged throughout our lives. That was until Crspr technology came along. To best understand how Crspr works, think of a document in a word-processing application on a computer. If we need to replace a paragraph with a new one from a different document, we can simply identify the paragraph, delete it, and then copy and paste the new paragraph into its place. Crspr technology allows us to theoretically do the exact same thing, but with genes. Using Crspr, scientists are able to identify a specific gene, remove it and replace it with another. The implications of this technology are huge: in time, scientists could develop completely new species, like genetically modified apple trees that bear large fruits, or disease- and bug-resistant maize. We could also see cows that yield considerably more milk and a new species of mosquito that does not spread malaria. Scientists have also mixed genetic material from different species, such as adding the “glow-in-the-dark” gene of deep-water jellyfish to yeast, producing glow-in-the-dark yeast. This Dr Moreau-type “cross-species” gene editing will raise many ethical questions. Of course, there are countless potential applications of Crspr within the human body. For example, Chinese scientists have recently treated a person with cancer by extracting cancer-causing cells, editing them using Crspr, and then re-injecting those cells into the patient’s body. The new cells will replace the old, cancer-causing ones, completely eradicating cancer from the patient’s body. While this is an undoubtedly positive application of the technology, other applications such as “designer babies” and “enhanced human beings”, both of which can be designed in a lab using Crspr technology, clearly cross the safety and ethical lines. Will we soon see new species of artificially enhanced plants, animals and humans emerging? Without a doubt. Is it ethical to tinker with technology such as Crspr? The jury is out on that.

Shoutout to the Matric Class 2019. Go out there and make great things happen!🙌👏 According to the Department of Education, 787 717 candidates wrote the 2019 National Senior Certificate (NSC), comprising full and part-time students. 186 058 achieved a bachelor’s pass, 44 762 a diploma pass and 78 984 a higher certificate pass. BUT. While the Department may glorify this as an impressive 81.3% pass rate, according to Nomsa Marchesi, DA shadow Minister of Basic Education, the “real” matric pass rate, is much lower, at only 38.9%. Why? Because in 2017, a total of 1 052 080 learners were enrolled in Grade 10, yet only 409 906 learners eventually passed Grade 12 last year. This means only 38.9% of Grade 10 learners actually wrote and passed matric. “This is for the most part due to an extraordinarily high drop-out rate, which means that hundreds of thousands of learners are denied the chance to write matric, let alone pass it. This is an indication of a dismally failing system, not a functional and successful one,” Marchesi said. So where to from here? What happens to the kids who didn’t make it to Grade 12? What happens to the Grade 12s who didn’t pass or who won’t get a place in University to further their studies? Youth unemployment (between the ages of 15 – 24yrs) sat at a shocking 55.2% in the first quarter of 2019. Among graduates in this age group, the unemployment rate was 31,0% during this period. Let that sink in . . . 31.0% holding some kind of diploma/degree, sitting at home, without a job. . . And yet . . . Several sectors in South Africa’s economy are experiencing critical skill shortages, with Technology, Engineering and Artisans topping the list. According to a very impressive write up on youth unemployment, by Ron Geel, head of partnerships and placements at Life Choices Academy(a web development and programming bootcamp) – “South Africa is in the grip of an unemployment crisis with job opportunities at an all-time low. The country’s tech industry is facing a crisis of skills shortages and it points towards the fact that we are missing a vital cog in this equation” He said : “Most youth from low-resourced communities can’t access or afford tertiary education, nor the cost of living without earning an income for the duration of study. In addition to that, formal education is not agile enough to respond to industry needs. Perhaps we need to challenge the premise that an individual’s ability to add value to the economy is solely based on one’s ability to obtain a diploma or degree. And that youth education is solemnly a task for educational institutions. By offering the youth platforms and opportunities to ramp up their skills within industry and get paid at the same time, one could argue that we would kill two birds with one stone. Industry needs to get more involved in developing innovative models to educate and equip youth for employment in areas of high demand. The approach to partnerships should be fluid and multi-faceted, following a fresh and current perspective. This should include youth, upskilling organisations, corporate South Africa, and local government to develop an ecosystem of support which will alleviate the pressures we all are faced with. This would ensure that the system is ever evolving, on trend, and focused with the ever evolving needs of the industry at its core” The sad truth is that South Africans, especially the youth, still haven’t fully embraced the potential of Technology and 4IR. Thinking back to ITvarsity’s recent visit to schools around KZN and Gauteng . . . too many of the students are still unaware of or don’t even know what 4IR is. When asked to fill in a questionnaire, one of the questions was : What would you like to study after school? Of the +- 500 students, many said they want to be lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, dentists, teachers or accountants. A few chose things like fashion design, interior design, agriculture and journalism. ONLY 30 said they want to go into a Tech related field. Not a single student chose an Artisan Field. And that, my friends, is the vital missing cog that keeps the SA economic wheel from turning. . .

A road sign welcomes visitors to the Finnish town of Nokia – the namesake of the well-known mobile company. When Microsoft took over Nokia in 2013, a vandal scratched out the name “Nokia” on the sign and wrote the word Microsoft underneath it. While this was an act of vandalism, there is a deeper meaning to it that the Finns understand more than anyone. Nokia was not just another company to them; it was a source of national pride, like a country’s sports team. The sale of the beloved company to the American tech giant was a huge blow to that pride. But Nokia’s fall was far more serious than a sports team losing a match; it had serious consequences for the country’s economy. At its peak around 2007, Nokia employed 35000 people, a large number for a tiny country with a population of 5.5 million. The company had an almost insatiable appetite for engineers, and any young Finn graduating with an engineering degree was almost guaranteed a job at Nokia. Unfortunately, the remarkable and unprecedented relationship between company and country did not last. With the release of the iPhone in 2007, Nokia was almost wiped out. About 12 years later, its employees has dwindled to a mere 3500 – just 10% of the original number. With the collapse of Nokia, one thing became very clear: Finland’s economy would take a severe knock and the country would spiral into a disastrous recession. Except that it did not. The tiny Nordic country rebounded from the collapse of its biggest company and not only survived, but thrived. And like the fall of Nokia, this remarkable accomplishment is the object of international studies. More importantly, Finland’s post-Nokia success can provide valuable lessons for developing countries like South Africa. In fact we have the potential to do better, because we have massive advantages over them. For starters, we have more land – a lot more. Finland occupies a measly 338000km2 compared to South Africa’s 1.2 million. Additionally, we have a population more than 10 times theirs, a climate ideal for agriculture, and an abundance of natural resources. Yet, they’ve managed to become a key player in the global tech space, while we seem to be falling behind. How did they accomplish this? Firstly, the Finns did not become entitled by their success. Instead, they leveraged the successes during the early part of this century to prepare their economy for the transition from depending on one large company to depending on many smaller companies. Maybe it was due to their turbulent past, but they were wise to prepare for the worst. As any economist will tell you, for a country’s economy to depend on one industry is extremely risky; but to depend on one company is a disaster waiting to happen. Secondly, the Finns realised very early on that a key element of this transition was education, and placed a lot of emphasis on education. The end result was an education system that many experts believe is the best in the world. Finally, Finland understood that, due to the limitations imposed by the country’s geography, the future of their economy was going to be in the tech space, and specifically in entrepreneurship. So they turned their focus to the start-up ecosystem, and in typical Finland-style, they went big. Rather than declaring certain locations in the country to be start-up hubs, they declared their entire country to be a start-up hub. And the results were phenomenal.

The relationship between Nokia and Finland was like no other in corporate history. Never before was there such a close relationship between a company and the country in which it was founded. To the Finnish people, Nokia, one of the oldest companies in Finland, was more than just a business; it was a source of national pride and the country’s fortunes were closely tied with those of the company. Nokia was the company that put Finland on the map, making the country an international player in the global economy. Not only that, but Nokia saved the country from a huge economic crisis. In the late 1980s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union – one of Finland’s biggest customers – the country’s exports nearly dried up and by 1991 industrial output fell 9%. The country was in its biggest crisis since World War II. Nokia, being one of the Finland’s oldest and biggest companies at the time, was facing a crisis of its own. The country’s woes had hurt the company, and it was fighting for its life. The crisis reached its peak when, in 1988, the group head, Kari Kairamo, committed suicide. Nokia tried to sell up to Ericsson, but the deal fell through and the crisis continued. Up until that point, Nokia had focused on a number of different industries, like paper, rubber, chemicals and, since the 1970s, electronics and telecommunications. In the early 1990s, in a state of sheer desperation, it decided to gamble it all on a brand new, emerging technology: cellular phones. This was a huge risk: cellular technology was still in its infancy and the worldwide adoption was a tiny fraction of a percent. Leveraging its experience in telecommunications space, the company developed a network based on the GSM standard, and developed the first prototype mobile GSM phone, which the prime minister, Harri Holkeri, used to make the first commercial GSM call in Helsinki. From there, Nokia went on to release the first commercial GSM cellular phone on the market: the Nokia 1011. The phone was a brick: it weighed nearly 500g and the 195mm x 60mm x 45mm form factor made it almost as big as a brick. Nonetheless, the phone was a massive success and launched one of the most successful brands in cellphone history, one that was to become the leader of the mobile phone revolution, a global force and a household name. Nokia followed up the 1011 with the 2010 and the 2110, both of which were successful. The company continued to produce a series of big hits and, by 2000, Nokia was an unstoppable force in the global cellular market, commanding a whopping 40% of the market. Finland rode on Nokia’s phenomenal success. According to the Wired blog, by that time Nokia accounted for 4% of Finnish GDP, 70% of Helsinki’s stock exchange market capital, 43% of corporate research and development, 21% of total exports and 14% of corporate tax revenues. At its peak the company employed 35000 people. For a small country with a population of just over 5.5million, this was a huge boost. Unfortunately, this was not to last. In the early 2000s, Apple decided to take a similar bet that Nokia did nearly two decades prior: they decided to gamble it all on mobile phones. Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, and his team of brilliant engineers led by Jonathan Ive and Imran Chaudhri, developed the iPhone, which was subsequently released in 2007. The iPhone was met with mockery from Nokia’s executives, but the device was to become Nokia’s undoing. Over the next six years, Nokia fell, and hard. The once ruler of the global mobile kingdom, the company that made half of all the mobile phones sold in the world, was blown almost out of existence by Apple, Google and Samsung. In 2011, in a last-ditch effort to save themselves, the company made yet another crucial mistake, one that would seal its fate: Nokia partnered with Microsoft to offer the mobile version of the Windows operating system on their phones. The Windows mobile operating system was quirky, troublesome and poorly supported by developers, which led to its failure, taking Nokia down with it. By 2013, Nokia could not sustain its mobile phone division any longer. The company suffered the ultimate indignity by selling its mobile to Microsoft for $5billion. That was the moment that signified the end of Nokia’s reign. For the Finnish people it was a day of national mourning, a day when they had to swallow their national pride. One might think that, with Nokia’s troubles, the Finnish economy might have suffered yet another crisis. The reality, however, was that the country was not as badly affected as one might expect, because they were ready for it thanks to advance planning. In the way that Finland recovered from Nokia’s fall, is a valuable lesson that all countries, and South Africa in particular, can learn.

Last week I was called in for an interview at an international radio station regarding the topic of children and screens. This is a highly relevant topic, especially during this time of the year when the holidays kick in and parents have to deal with the children being out of school. Nearly every parent wonders if spending time in front of screens, be they computers, laptops, tablets or phones, is harmful to children. There is so much contradictory information out there that many parents don’t know what to think. Others are concerned about the vast amounts of unsavoury content out there and how to protect children from it. There is no shortage of pornography, violence, prowlers and bullies out there in cyberspace. The question is, what is a parent to do? We can start by debunking the myth that screen time is bad for children. The truth is, screen time is not bad for children. Excessive screen time is bad. There are a number of sensational reports in the media, such as the occupational therapist who called for banning 12-year-olds from using tech, to stories about Silicon Valley tech chief executives who do not allow their children to use devices. While these may or may not be true, one thing is certain: they are implausible. I cannot imagine a child today who is not tempted to use gadgets. The technology is ubiquitous, the temptation is real and children are children. If they are normal, they will not simply be content with the prohibition – they will find a way. Unless the parents have the time and resources to implement 24/7 “big brother” type surveillance on their children, my guess is they are using gadgets behind their parents’ backs. In my two decades of working with children and their parents, I’ve seen a recurring pattern: where parents are too hard, children rebel. If we try to deprive them of gadgets at home, they will not only despise us, but they will also find gadgets elsewhere. So, what is the solution? I wish there was a simple solution, but as a parent of three boys I know that parenting is not easy and like with all things relating to parenting, managing how our children use technology takes hard work and consistency. Firstly, we need to look at things from our children’ perspectives and embrace technology. There is a lot of good and the first step to finding it is to stop having a negative outlook. Secondly, we need to become a part of our children’s technology experience. There is no better way to guide them, spend quality time with them and, above all, build trust. The mistake most parents make is to stay aloof, but this comes from our own fears and perceived inadequacies – we are afraid because our children know more than us. My response is, so what? So what if your child becomes the teacher and you the student? With the right mindset, it can become a fun and wholesome family experience. There is no substitute for spending quality time with our children. When there is a relationship of trust built up, there is a much better chance that children will not take advantage of the privilege of using technology by going over the bounds or viewing inappropriate content. Of course, there are a number of parental control apps out there, but ultimately my personal mantra is this: “Good tech is no substitute for good parenting.” Next, we need to find good digital content. A parent mentioned to me recently that they she and her children have a lot of fun with audio books. Sites like Audible.com offer tens of thousands of audio books for a monthly subscription. There are also a number of free online audio book libraries like LibriVox and Project Gutenberg. My children are lazy about reading. I tried really hard to get them to read, but without success. Then I stumbled on Audible. Now, we select audio books together as a family and listen to them for an hour before bed. They absolutely love it. They even listen on the drive to and from school. At the end of each listening session, there is a short family discussion about the current book. Once a book is complete, each family member posts a brief review on their Goodreads profile. Goodreads is a social network for sharing book reviews. Think Facebook, but for bookworms. Finally, as parents we need to put into place house rules regarding tech and daily limits need to be implemented and respected. For children up to 12 years old, I strongly recommend no more than two hours of daily screen time during the holidays. This is by far the hardest part to accomplish. There will be dissent and dissatisfaction, and maybe even a civil war, but ultimately, we as the parents can never surrender.  

The past century may have brought us unprecedented technological advancement, but it’s also a metaphorical graveyard of dozens of businesses that failed to innovate, or failed to see opportunities, and were consequently wiped off the map. Many of those businesses were giants of their times, solid organisations with near monopolies and worth billions of dollars; but along the way something went horribly wrong and they disappeared in almost no time. If companies today are to survive the next decade, they’ll be well advised to study those that failed closely and draw lessons from their examples. Of all the failures of the 20th century, none were as spectacularly unfortunate as the story of the graphical user interfaces (GUIs) on computers. Until the mid-1980s, the only way to navigate through your computer was via what we call the “Command Prompt” or “Terminal” today. All you had was a black screen with text indicating the current folder you were in. You needed to type in commands to navigate the system and open apps. Then, in 1984, Apple released the first commercially available computer with a GUI, the Apple Lisa. The machine was a huge success. Apple was followed by a number of other companies, most notably Microsoft, who released the first version of their Windows operating system in 1894. Thanks to the cutting edge technology and extreme convenience, the graphical interfaces were a massive success and kicked off a whole new era of computing. They were nothing short of transformational. But who actually invented the graphical user interface? Some people will say Microsoft, others might say Apple, but it was neither. The company that invented the GUI was one that is not at all associated with computers: Xerox. Xerox released the first computer with a GUI in 1973, more than a decade before the launch of Apple’s Lisa. In computing terms, a decade is more than a lifetime. The Xerox Alto, as the computer was called, was truly ground-breaking, decades ahead of its time. In some ways, the release of the Alto was far more remarkable than the release of the iPhone. Whereas the iPhone was built on a number of existing technologies, the Alto was innovation in its true form: they really brought something new into existence that never existed before. The Alto was an amazing machine, even by today’s standards. It introduced a number of software concepts still in use today. Because Xerox was a printer company, their aim was to was to revolutionise the printing industry; hence, they developed desktop publishing software especially for the Alto. They were the first to create a word processor, a drawing programme and a photo editor. Users could use the visual, WYSIWIG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) software, not too different from today’s generation of software, to prepare documents like letters, posters and pamphlets for printing. They could then print those documents via a built-in printer that was attached to the Alto. Bear in mind, this was in the early 1970s. The question is, why isn’t Xerox known for this? Xerox has a unique place in innovation history where, rather than failing to innovate, they innovated something that was truly remarkable, but made a single mistake: they did not see its true potential. Not only that, but some people at Xerox saw the Alto as a threat to their printer business. The result was that the Alto was relegated to Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre, or Parc, as it’s popularly known, where it was put on display for visitors to see as the “future of computing”. Around 1979, a brilliant young entrepreneur happened to visit Parc, and he saw the Alto. Immediately, a light bulb went on in his head, and he saw its potential. He arranged for his team to receive a demo of the system. This entrepreneur was Steve Jobs, and not five years later, the Apple Lisa was released, being largely inspired by the Alto. Lisa was a massive success, launched Apple into one of the forerunners in the crowded computer market and helped the company to bolster its place in technology and corporate history. Seeing the success of the Lisa, Xerox attempted to bring the Alto to market, but it was too late: the Lisa had taken too much of the market share, and by then other competitors were already riding the bandwagon. Fast-forward four decades, and Apple and Microsoft dominate the tech industry, and were among the first companies in history to pass the trillion-dollar valuation mark. As for Xerox, in early 2018 the company was absorbed into FujiFilm Holdings, ending a 115-year run as an independent company. “Xerox is the poster child for monopoly technology businesses that cannot make the transition to a new generation of technology,” according to David B Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School.

Digital transformation is tricky. Everybody wants to be on board with it, and every company aims to transform itself as a technology company and a disruptor, but few get it right. The reason is that they make two serious mistakes. The first mistake is that they fail to understand the difference between transformation and digitisation. They are two very different things, and understanding that difference is one of the tricky things about digital transformation. Digitisation simply means that a business has replaced its manual processes with automated ones. There is little or no change in the business processes, the company culture or the customer experience. New devices and software are introduced, like a new point-of-sale system, a back-end accounting system or even an e-commerce website or a mobile app. While digitisation is great and, done properly, can deliver incredible value to a company, it is not transformation. Transformation goes beyond technology and affects the very heart and soul, the very DNA of a company. It changes the way a company does business, with a particular focus on the customer experience. One company that has been a forerunner in the digital transformation space is China’s Alibaba, the e-commerce giant. Founded by Jack Ma in 1999, Alibaba had the advantage of being born into the technology paradigm. The company did not start life as a traditional, brick and mortar- type business which then went digital; instead, like Amazon, it was founded as an internet-based business. Alibaba went on to become a formidable tech giant, and also one of the most innovative companies on the globe, driving massive innovation in the online retail space as well as in a number of other industries. Their most recent innovation is the futuristic FlyZoo Hotel in Hangzhou, China. The hotel is almost entirely operated by robots. From the moment you enter the hotel, you notice the difference: there is no familiar reception desk with smiling attendants. What you see is a robot that scans your identity document to confirm who you are, then scans your face and tells you your room number. When you enter the elevator, you do not need to push a button to select your floor. The facial scanner scans your face and recognises you; and because it is connected to the hotel’s booking system, it also knows your room number, and hence which floor you need to go to. There are no keys or access cards to enter your room. Just like the elevator, the room doors are fitted with facial scanners. When you stand in front of the scanner, it automatically scans your face. If it recognises you, an LED on the door turns green, signalling that you can open the door to enter. Although face identification is not groundbreaking from a technology perspective, the integrated way in which it is being used at this hotel is unique. When you enter your room, you will notice that, other than a futuristic decor, the hotel rooms are pretty standard, except for a voice-activated virtual assistant that you can instruct to do anything – from searching the web, checking the weather, turning on the television, opening and closing the curtains, adjusting the air-conditioning, and even ordering room service. At the hotel restaurant there are no waiters; you order your food via a mobile app, and it is brought to your table shortly thereafter by a little robot waiter that resembles Twiki from the 1980s television series Buck Rogers. Only certain foods that the robot cannot manage to carry are brought by humans. What is the overall experience of staying in a robot-run hotel like? Some of the guests describe the hotel as being extremely quiet, but not in a good way; they say it feels almost deserted. Other than the occasional guests you might bump into in the foyer and corridors, the place is devoid of people. There is no friendly receptionist, and no hotel staff anywhere to be seen. For this reason, people found the place a bit creepy. Others found the facial scanning a bit creepy too, and there is a big question around privacy and information security. Alibaba claims the information is for booking purposes only, is never shared out of the hotel and is deleted after the guest checks out. How true this is, is anyone’s guess. No doubt, the FlyZoo Hotel is a marvel of technology and is arguably the most advanced hotel in the world, with some impressive technology. Alibaba will soon make the tech available to other hotels and hopes to transform the hospitality industry through that. “As smart technology is reshaping industries, the FlyZoo Hotel represents Alibaba’s endeavor to marry hospitality with technology, and ultimately inspire and empower the tourism industry to embrace innovation,” Andy Wang, CEO of Alibaba Future Hotel, the group operating the hotel Will this tech be transformative? It is not possible to say at this stage because the other tricky thing about digital transformation is that it is driven by the customer. If the customers are happy, there will be adoption which will lead to transformation. In the case of robot-run hotels, we’ll just have to wait and see if the customers will be wooed by the concept.