The spread of coronavirus not only changed the way we live, work and relate to our surroundings, but it has also dented the already unstable economy. This outbreak came at a time where organisations are still grappling and adapting to the new technologies brought by the4^th Industrial Revolution (4IR). The pandemic is also a wake-up call for organisations to accelerate digitisation, become relevant to the fast-changing world and ensure that business continues as usual.

On 13 August 2020, The Central University of Technology, Free State in partnership with First National Bank (FNB) held a webinar to try and find ways to leverage 4IR technologies for local economic growth and development.

Two guest speakers, Messrs Hugo Pienaar and Mitesh Chotu, presented on business and economy beyond the pandemic. They both gave insightful presentations on what can be possibly done to resolve the economy and how 4IR can be used to address the challenges brought by the pandemic and assist vulnerable people.

Mr Hugo Pienaar from the Bureau for Economic Research (BER), Stellenbosch University, asked, “to what extent will we see businesses not re-open and how long will it take for those businesses to be replaced by new businesses employing new people.”  He further touched on the business cycle downswing, which he said is a broader term that refers to when the general economy is performing below its long-term trend. He also pointed out that the virus has had an extremely negative impact on the already depressed economy.

 “On average South Africa’s downturn is around 20 months and as we speak, we are in the 81st month of our current business cycle downswing, and obviously, COVID has prolonged this downswing, but even before COVID, South Africa was already by far in its longest business cycle downswing. This emphasises that our starting position was not great.”

The second guest speaker, Mr Mitesh Chotu, a well-established Area Solution Architect at Microsoft, with knowledge spanning several industries and technology domains, also provided his views on 4IR technologies. 

He said that looking at the post COVID era, one of the most critical and essential things to have in place is the right teams and skills set to tackle the challenges that lay ahead of us. “When you look beyond COVID scenarios, you see many clients focusing on complex initiatives where they use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to screen employees in the workplace and enabling AI for workers to be safer. They focus a lot of agenda of work from anywhere scenarios, no longer is it fixed on a brick and mortar building where employees need to work. Transformation does need a bit of a holistic approach to what must be applied across people process and technology. What the pandemic situation has shown us is that when companies have correctly applied the use of technologies, they have been able to successfully support the people as well as the internal processes during the tough economic times, making them much more resilient within the workplace.”

As a university, the CUT established the CUT COVID-19 Relief Fund (CCRF) to lend local support.  Relief will be financial or in-kind, for example, technological devices, medical products, or other inventions, as well as products and services aimed at assisting vulnerable community members and CUT students.

Contributions can also be made via FNB public recipient list on the banking APP. Search for: CUT Student Account.

WATCH recording of webinar