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Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Need for Digitalization Strategies by African Countries

March 18 2020

The digital revolution that is being ushered in today by means of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is significantly transforming economies and societies through disruptive innovations across sectors, industries and organizations. The revolution is being driven by complex mathematics, algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning and new technologies, among others.

At the centre are scientists, engineers, data analysts, researchers, inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs. Their products and services are revolutionizing production and delivery of goods and services, government functions and public service delivery, agriculture and food systems, healthcare and development of medicines, information and communication technologies, energy, transportation, finance, biodiversity and conservation, among numerous others. Africa has to be part of this rapidly evolving revolution. It however has to develop the required capacity – knowledge, skills, competencies, institutional frameworks and innovation ecosystem required by the modern digital economy. This will require a combination of institutional framework for developing pipeline of talented and highly skilled graduates and reskilling of existing experts, teachers and work forces. Integrated national, regional and continental strategies are therefore needed for Africa to bridge its digital skills gaps systematically and comprehensively.

The African continent is variously classified as the least prepared for the digital revolution and economic transformation. Average Networked Readiness Index reported by WEF in 2016 put Africa at 3.2/7; the 2019 Government Artificial Intelligence Readiness Index showed no African country is in the top 20. The best performing region, on average, is North America, while the worst performing regions are Africa and Asia-Pacific. The number of researchers per million on the continent stands at 198. This is far less than the average in other developing regions (Latin America and the Caribbean 502; East Asia and the Pacific, 1,459; World Average, 1,163). Our economies are still the least competitive (average 34.26/100), and account for less than 2% of global research output and less than 1% of global R&D investment. It is common knowledge that the availability and sustained flow of high-quality science, technology and innovation skills is the key, if African countries are to develop homegrown solutions to development challenges.

The present and rapidly evolving digital era challenges our countries, our regions and the entire continent to develop and implement robust 4IR skills, technologies and digitalization strategies and programmes to build capacity that will:

1) Enable government ministries, agencies and parastatals; private-sector organizations; and NGOs to develop and implement robust 4IR and digitalization programs – across their functions to significantly improve quality, effectiveness and efficiency of public service delivery, goods and services offered, and engagement with development stakeholders.

2) Assist countries to use new skills, technologies and data science to identify opportunities, risks and deliver efficient products and services, and in the process create millions of new jobs in data science, digitalization, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

3) Make it possible for highly-specialized institutions, at national and regional levels, to offer consulting and advisory services to Africa’s private sector and government agencies to identify strategic goals and direction for digitalization and transformation programme across their various functions and entities.

4) Strengthen existing educational and specialised training institutions to build a critical mass of world-class African specialists to lead development, delivery and management of innovative 4IR and data sciences initiatives.

5) Significantly raise 4IR technologies and digitalization, especially data science awareness and capacity building across the public and private sectors.

6) Reflected in established and/or strengthened tertiary education and training institutions to develop at world-class and sustainable basis, strong national pipelines of young, bright and very talented African specialists in mathematical sciences, data analytics, algorithms building and sector-industry-organization specific solutions in digitalization and 4IR technologies transformation.

7) Promote industry initiatives that build and expand experiences in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, innovation, management of big data, data governance and cyber security, among others.

8) Enable the building of the next generation of specialists in data and analytics systems for front-to-back digitalization of current available data and information in public, private and non-governmental organizations, among others, for transformation and economic development.

9) Facilitate specialized institutions to provide customized training on how to use data and data analytics to provide powerful insights into operational opportunities and challenges in products and services.

10) Strengthen existing institutions and establish new ones to produce specialists who are very knowledgeable in tackling range of complex software and data challenges – data management, business intelligence integration and advanced analytics implementation, and deliver data-lake solutions to power data and analytics transformation.

11) Enable trainers at secondary and tertiary levels to be reskilled so that African countries and regions produce and use their own world-class subject-matter specialists in advanced mathematical sciences; artificial intelligence; data-science-driven technologies; large-data modelling and analysis; big-data platforms; machine learning; and data architectures, infrastructures and analytics, among others.

12) Provide for the creation of platforms that serve as mechanisms for: hands-on experiences in the application of knowledge and skills; technical advice to entities; development of frameworks and best practices; development and testing proof-of-concepts; performance of horizon scanning to remain up-to-date with the latest technologies, techniques and methods; and conduct of research in the development of proof of concepts and prototypes.

13) Grow the number of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data and analytics engineers with specialized skills to develop data-science initiatives, build algorithms and test experiments to develop tailor-made solutions; and use machine learning tools to produce solutions.

In essence, the 21st Century capacity needs require Africa to significantly increase the number of PhD-level scientists, engineers, researchers by at least 1 million every decade. In addition, the continent will need to reskill 2-5 million of existing talents and workforces in public service, in the sectors, industry and training institutions across the continent every five years. This will require a new strategy in human capital development through high-quality science education and training for talent pipeline development to support high quality research and innovation ecosystems; development of a strong science, technology and innovation talent base; reskilling of young African graduates to strengthen digital skills and develop a sustainable talent base for innovation ecosystem in each African country; and the emergence of skilled workforces to accelerate innovation.

To meet the 21st Century skills needs, the continent needs to capacitate:

a) Institutions that train scientists, engineers and scientific researchers
b) Invest in more labs for scientific research and innovations
c) Reskill unemployed youth with digital skills
d) Expand training in advanced mathematical sciences, engineering and technology
e) Build skills in industrial AI and ML, robotics and data analytics
f) Reform STEM educational curricula and build pipeline in the sciences
g) Support start-ups to promote entrepreneurship development among youth

To response to the foregoing, the skills deficit and the critical need to develop a strong pipeline of young, bright and talented Africans, African countries need national digitalization strategies and the establishment of centres of excellence in advanced mathematical sciences, artificial intelligence and machine learning.