Digital Re-imagination Colloquium 2018: Preparing South Africa for a Digital Future through e-Skills

Abstract

The theme of the 2018 colloquium, "Digital Re-imagination: Preparing South Africa for a Digital Future through e-Skills" sought to establish an innovative research network through providing a platform for government, academia, industry, education and civil society to share research, data and trends that will contribute to refining the mandate to develop the necessary e-skills capacity of South Africa With the dawn of every new age, the nature of work and our relationships change. The impact of these changes to the digital economy affect entire systems of production, management, and governance. For example, government is currently designed as linear and mechanistic yet the digital economy is made up of adaptive systems. William Gibson has famously been quoted for the phrase: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." Given the extant amount of data available today, it is now possible to predict (within some margins of error) how people will behave in certain situations. Data is increasingly becoming better structured and easy to access. The question is, are we ready for the future? Are we ready to harness the opportunities that the digital economy has brought? Can the digital economy make a better South Africa for all? Technology today is able to perform exponentially better than we can; how then can we create new industries and new forms of governance? It is critical to re-think how systems are being implemented. Creativity and innovation is big business in the digital economy. Creativity and innovation moves contributions to beyond the individual and the group - to societal, disciplinary, national and global level. The prevalent economic paradigm of a winner who takes it all means that the lower income earners are increasingly more dissatisfied. One of the symptoms of any illness is pain. Pain can be seen in our society in the form of unemployment, poverty and the dissatisfaction with the status quo. The challenges in our society cry out for change - a new way of thinking about employment, wealth creation and governance. What are the real opportunities that the digital economy presents to the people of South Africa? Real opportunities are those which are not only available substantively, but are also achievable by the people for who they are created. The opportunities presented by the digital economy can only become real if we e-skill people to take advantage of those opportunities. Countries in the East have been able to adapt technologies without giving up the cultural values they hold dear. While the challenges we face in South Africa may be seen as a problem, they also present an opportunity to make a difference with Digital Skills. It is no longer enough to have a skill; technology, talent and insight are becoming critical as well. The colloquium received 13 submissions. These submissions include four full papers, one concept note and eight abstracts. The submissions were all blind peer reviewed by at least two reviewers. None of the authors nor editors were involved in reviewing their own submissions.