Original Story Published by: Ashburton Investments for Moneyweb
The Fourth Industrial Revolution may not be a risk to jobs after all.
Talk of artificial intelligence (AI) and the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has created fear in developed countries that many jobs will be lost to machines and robots, and that economic growth will be stifled by technological advances.
We, however, believe that the African continent may well be able to benefit from these technologies in ways that possibly aren’t envisaged in more developed economies. The continent should also be able to avoid the expensive roll out of outdated technologies and leapfrog to the latest innovations. After all, as Naadiya Moosajee, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper said: “necessity is the mother of invention and in Africa it has been the mother of innovation.”
History shows us that people on the continent have been strong adopters of new technologies and that Africa has even bypassed existing developments. After skipping the roll out of land lines, mobile technology users were quick to see the benefits this could bring, especially mobile money. Sub-Saharan Africa, with just under half of all the mobile money platforms in the world, is leading the globe in rolling out financial products to masses of people who were previously excluded from this area of the formal economy.
By the end of 2017, there were 122 million active mobile money accounts in the region, with users transacting $20 billion per month (63% of the value of all mobile money transactions in the world).
Even if changes are needed to localize software or technologies, there are enough expert hubs across the continent with strong information technology and engineering capabilities to do this.
To read the full article, visit MoneyWeb.
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