Increased broadband connectivity has a meaningful and direct impact on the economic prospects of individuals, communities and countries at large. A World Bank study estimated that a 10% increase in broadband penetration in low and middle-income countries can result in a 1,38% increase in economic growth.
At home, Statistics SA’s General Household Survey released in December last year found that 8,3% of households in South Africa had access to the internet via copper or fibre. This is not to say that the rest of the country is not interested in connecting – the same survey found that almost two thirds of South Africans access the internet via a mobile connection.
The City of Johannesburg is set to digitise patient records through an e-health solution to be rolled out in the coming year.
This is according to executive mayor Mpho Phalatse, who outlined plans to use digital technologies in anchoring service delivery during her State of the City Address last week.
Read more: ZA: City of Joburg to deploy e-health, digitise health records
For the past two years, the Covid-19 pandemic has placed communications technology in the epicentre of modern human activity.
Education and information dissemination has also assumed new form. Prompting a massive uptake on new mediums of teaching since millions of learners and teachers were unable to physically attend school. This gave rise to what is now known as the great digital divide. A situation whereby high levels of technological illiteracy and other issues of computer proficiency are causing further disparities between urban and rural schools.
Read more: ZA: The Importance Of Digital Transformation For The Education Sector
Digital citizen services platform "My Smart City" says citizens logging service delivery issues with the platform have seen a three- to four-fold improvement in turnaround times in resolving service delivery issues like water outages, broken traffic lights, potholes and power outages in major metropolitans across the country.
Improved resolution of service delivery issues is partly owing to the free, privately funded platform investing in a dedicated dispatch centre. The dispatch team ensures logged issues on the My Smart City platform go through the correct channels and makes follow-ups on behalf of citizens.
Accelerate the internet, drive people’s experiences via technology and you’ll achieve your digital transformation ambitions across the SA market.
CIARAN RYAN: Digital transformation is a phrase we have heard repeatedly since the onset of Covid. Companies are reconfiguring the way they do business by adopting a hybrid model, allowing employees to work from home and the office. Companies have also been forced to change the way they interact with customers, many of whom are now perfectly comfortable with online interactions.