The Fourth Industrial Revolution (#4IR) in the form of Internet of Things (IOTs), Blockchain, Cloud, Quantum Computing, and Avatar Human Capital, are quite the buzzwords these days, but let’s be real, are we ready? Do we even know what we’re asking for as the world, Africa, or even South Africa?

 

Rather, why don’t we go back to what we know; sit in our tried and tested static (air conditioned) buildings, bring copious amounts of papers and read! After all, this is what constitutes work, right. 

 

You have to sit behind a desk, clock in at 8am, be seen to be busy and only begin to fumble with your exit luggage at 1631. Working from home is a phantom objective that lures millennials but once you try and test it out, you quickly see that the technological infrastructure that may support this is obsolete, if at all present. 

 

When a basic in today’s world, working from home, is deemed a luxury, how close are we to joining the 4th industrial revolution track? There may be security concerns, but they should be easier to address and accord freedom of work than maintain the status quo only to see benchwarmers. 

 

Now what exactly is this 4th Industrial Revelation (not an error), yes revelation. It is when we in Sub-Saharan Africa have to contemplate the bitter reality that we are technologically outdated. Outdated in the sense that we consume at world class but manufacturing is obsolete. It has taken Africa 46 years to begin manufacturing the first completely African cell phone, despite the fact that all the components in these gadgets can be found on this continent.  

 

Discussing Africa, is inadvertently putting the states leadership on the on the spotlight. 

 

Leadership as fate would have it, has failed to transform the basic facet of state architecture that would give a competitive advantage to citizens in the wake of this looming revolution, education. Unlike the many times when one can blame the workman and the workman blames his tools, here the workmen and the tools are one. 

 

The continued separation of responsibility from the leader to some other administrative misfortune that is below his or her office has crippled the continent for far too long. Taking responsibility is an enormous step towards development and that is what’s needed in the advent of transforming technology. 

 

The 4th industrial revolution is not a coming explosion that will bang the continent leaving craters of inequality in its wake. Of course, this is a frightening outcome to contemplate, a process many would believe to follow the same sci-fi expose as just mentioned which is grossly inaccurate, but, as sure as dawn, there will be changes and education is a good place to start. Unlike past years where one could get by through simply taking up a desired course of study, focus on that track, graduate and find a job, the path towards economic self-emancipation has changed. It now needs more enhancement through an analytical skills component and a different form of critical thinking termed data literacy.

 

Social tensions through the adoption of new mechanisms cannot be ignored. The means to address this proactively before it becomes a social tripwire is to educate millennials in relevant adaptive skills for global competitiveness. 

 

In order to remain relevant, or basic, adopting this new technology became unescapable. As the 4th industrial revolution is being adopted, education is essential. Education on the benefits as well as education on how to be relevant to this change. 

 

When one speaks of education, particularly in this discussion, it is easy to assume that there is an expectation of knowing what the specs of summit are, which is nothing related to a heads of state meeting or a mountain peak, but no. This education is data literacy. It is the ability to read, scrutinize and work data. 

 

Before scathing attacks and abrasive responses, truth is, there is no demand on people to be Data Scientists but rather, to be comfortable in working with data. 

 

Yes, unnerving terminology like augmented intelligence, predictive modelling or machine learning can seem like boiling the ocean but the basis is to be data literate.

 

 

It is presently argued that investing in human capital remains an asset and not a liability considering that adoption of new technologies will utilize future-proofed (data literate) employees. The above stands as hope in the face of an impending unknown but the responsibility of State leadership to institute learning platforms and channels becomes intensified. Already it is projected that machines in all likelihood may work 42 percent of the present workplace tasks by 2022, in contrast to 29 percent today. 

 

This comes side by side with a 75 million job loss which ironically will give rise to about 130 million new roles. The immediate risk lies with repetitive work functions such as accounting, data entry customer services, factory manual roles, installation or memory demanding functions that must accommodate analytic innovation, design and critical problem solving work.  

 

Putting this into perspective, farming is adopting drone technology that will increase accuracy in measurement of planting and harvesting, but this drone will need a pilot and an application built specific to that farm. Bank tellers and banking halls have already started to vanish given how most of the services if not all can now be done in the comfort of one’s home or on the go on a digital device. 

 

These tellers can now be upskilled to perform backend work. Within the South African context, the clash between Uber and traditional taxi cab drivers may be a most vivid example of change where through an application, a customer could conveniently schedule a ride at a price not determined by ones haggling prowess. The traditional industry did not take this well and resorted to violent clashes putting Uber drivers and passengers at risk. Fighting technology is unsustainable and there shouldn’t always be a destructive cost to adoption.  

 

So, in preparation for this present future event governments need to step up efforts to educate their people and likewise allow room for individuals who have adopted this technology to contribute to development. In the end of it all, the greatest responsibility lies on the individual themselves to seek skills.  

 

The youth in particular given their benefit of age and energy, should adopt this early and actually compete on the global stage in innovation. There will be a rise of new social inequalities as well as new means of civic participation but rather take like a duck to water than out, Educate. 

 

The Author: Kudakwashe Bandama is the founder and executive director of Youth and Democracy Incubator (YADI) in South Africa.

 

Source: World Economic Forum, Big Squid, CNBC