To use technology to create growth and opportunity, South Africa must get its population fully connected to the internet, says one of the world’s leading technology executives.
During a visit to South Africa this week, Chuck Robbins, CEO of global networking hardware leader Cisco Systems, told Business Times that to fuel growth and prosperity, the country must drive connectivity and digitalisation of services.
“Even the US has a long way to go in what we need to do, but the core is underlying connectivity and making it broadly available. We’ve got the same issue in the US. That's why the Broadband Bill has been passed, to try to get broadband to everyone. And it's not just rural areas in the US, it's parts of urban cities where the underprivileged live.
“Government digitisation in the US has a long way to go in driving a single architecture across government for digitalisation, but we see certain countries that have done an amazing job over the last three-four years.
“You have to fundamentally believe it's going to be good for the economy. If you believe that, you'll make the investments. Once [the population is] connected, you can deliver education, you can deliver aspects of health care, people can now work from wherever they are in certain jobs. So it really opens up huge opportunity when we get everyone connected.”
In September 2019 Cisco invested $9.2m (now about R170m) to help to transform South Africa’s digital economy through its country digital acceleration (CDA) programme that focuses on cybersecurity, IT job creation and developing skills and talent. Robbins presided over the launch of a new phase of the CDA in South Africa on Friday.
The CDA programme, now funding more than 1,300 projects in 50 countries, promotes collaboration between the government and the private sector to build “inclusive communities powered by ethical, innovative technology solutions”.
Robbins said there will be a continued focus on education in South Africa and across Africa.
“There's a commitment across the continent to train 19-million students. There's investments in delivering education through libraries. There's connected government. The connected-government piece is incredibly critical, looking at everything from the services the government provides to citizens with connected justice to using technology to connect and provide more [resources], especially to those more at risk.”
There are technology areas that are so strategic, but the economics aren't clear yet. What should be super important in South Africa is overall digitalisation and connectivity for the people.
— Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco Systems
Asked why South Africa appeared to be falling behind in the evolution of digital government, he said it usually came down to one word: “commitment”.
“You just have to gain conviction on that. And you have to believe that. Countries have to look at public-private partnerships, where it's so important for the infrastructure in the country to be built out, and whether that's going to be done by private carriers or private telecom companies. Sometimes it may require a public-private partnership to make those investments, to get that core foundation built, because it's the backbone of the digital economy.
“Every country is coming to some conclusion that a version of public-private partnerships is going to have to happen. And some countries make it very easy and some countries make it very difficult, by nature of the politics.
“I suspect over the next few days, we will have those discussions… What should be super important in South Africa is overall digitalisation and connectivity for the people.
“The other thing that's really important is ensuring policy is encouraging investment, encouraging job creation, to try to continue to drive the economy, pushing digital education for next-generation jobs and creating capacity for talent to drive innovation, creating an innovation economy,” Robbins said.
The CDA, he said, was part of Cisco’s commitment to helping to drive that digital development in South Africa.
“Once you get these young students trained ... you see this innovative spirit take off, and then you start seeing ecosystems pop up and you see innovation hubs begin to get created. It becomes self-perpetuating. There's so much that can be done here through the use of technology. And if you unleash this smart, next generation, they'll figure it out because they grew up with technology. They know how to use it.”
Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a major role in Cisco’s technology and the company is likely to make further product announcements, Robbins said.
“We have a flood of features and capabilities that exist in products today that are driven by AI behind the scenes that we didn't launch as AI features. We launched them as features.
“But looking forward, you will see a flood of enhancements. You'll see a natural language interface emerge on all the products. You'll see a policy assistant so customers can use plain English to describe the security policy they would like… Then our AI technology will translate that through to a technical policy configuration. The human has to stay involved and the human would validate it.
“Things like that you're going to see across the entire portfolio as we move forward. The use cases for generative AI are going to continue to evolve for several years.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.