NUGGET (27 JUNE 2024)
Nuggets! (Bite size updates on the real important stuff related to Tech, Trends, Business and the Planet.)
It’s just about mid-2024! Maybe some of you want to know what trends I am keeping an eye on still for this year specifically for business opportunities in Africa? Here are 9 ‘themes’:
• Afrocentric and authentic content: African storytelling! It’s as if finally our song is being played and enjoyed throughout the world.
• AI: Artificial Intelligence is important for business in Africa. It can drive economic growth, help level the playing field for smaller companies, enhance efficiency, improve decision-making, and solve unique regional challenges in sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and financial services.
• Diversity: It is what brings a broad range of perspectives and ideas to the table, which can only result in more innovative and resilient solutions with greater buy-in of support, a better understanding of diverse markets (and one another), and ultimately, stronger economic (and more unified) performance and inclusion.
• Sustainability: Very important for long-term ecological balance, improving resilience against environmental challenges (which people are yet to fully come to terms with just how many we have), and promoting social and economic development that benefits both current and future generations.
• Sports: This can drive economic growth through job creation, infrastructure development, fostering community engagement, national pride, and promoting a healthier lifestyle. It can also offer great spin-off opportunities for SMEs.
• Music: Stimulating economic activity through the entertainment industry, fostering lots of cultural exchange, and creating employment opportunities across various sectors.
• Tourism: Generating significant revenue, creating jobs (especially for SMEs), helping cultural exchange, and stimulating the development of infrastructure and other industries. Entrepreneurs must keep their finger on the pulse, for example, Table Mountain is closing their cable car for maintenance for 6 weeks—what opportunities does that offer now?
• Security: Working to stabilize and create a safe environment, which is essential for attracting investment, fostering economic growth, and protecting assets and personnel. In general, South Africans don’t feel safe, and improving community safety can only reduce our stress and improve our quality of life.
• Gen Z: This population group is important for business because they represent a (very) significant and ever-growing portion of the population in Africa, driving demand for new products and services, embracing digital innovation, and influencing market trends and consumer behavior. Marketing teams need to get to know their characteristics and attributes and a good place to start is their demographic significance, technology savviness, consumer behavior, entrepreneurial spirit, and social impact.
I am genuinely humbled when I see a mention of me on another website. This month I presented a talk called “The Man in the Mirror” at the 16th International Southern African Online Information Conference in Johannesburg.
The talk was all about AI and how Artificial Intelligence makes us reflect on our own intelligence and assess the data we have curated for AI to learn from. Here is the link:
My wonderful Clients feedback:
Like Robotics? I do! I highly recommend this channel to stay up to date with the latest robotic news and innovations:
https://www.youtube.com/@PROROBOTS
From this channel, the first video you should watch is the following link, which covers updates on Neuralink, GPT-4, AI teaching robots, AI targeting cancer, a new space suit, and many other exciting topics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOmewzYvB5A
~
While sharing channels, here is one I recommend for keeping up to date on innovation:
The Earth is over 4.5 billion years old, give or take a few hundred thousand years. The land we walk on is not the land that the Earth first formed, due to the cycling of supercontinents and other geological processes over billions of years, where the top layers move down and new layers move up.
HOWEVER! There is a patch of land that has remained unchanged for almost the full life of the Earth, and guess what, it is here in South Africa! The oldest parts of the Earth’s crust are found in regions known as cratons. A craton is an ancient and very stable part of the continental lithosphere that has survived the cycling of supercontinents and other geological processes over billions of years.
One of the most well-known cratons is the Kaapvaal Craton in southern Africa and the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. Some of the rocks in these cratons have been dated to around 3.5 to 4 billion years old. If you want to find the oldest part of the Earth’s ‘skin’, the Acasta Gneiss in northwestern Canada is believed to be the oldest known part of continental crust, with zircon minerals found there to have been dated at about 4.02 billion years old.
This month, the People’s Bank of China announced that it is going to ‘front’ 300 billion yuan / $42.25 billion to financial institutions to ‘lend’ to local state-owned enterprises (SOEs) so they can buy unsold apartments that have already been built. Correct me if I am wrong, please – does that mean China’s government is fronting money to be used as loans to itself? How does this really help the property market and private owners? Read more here:
I love this post very much so I had to share it.
I believe schools are underused ‘opportunities’ to offer so many types of lessons. How to be a better parent, how to be an active democratic citizen, how to live in an ethnically diverse nation and focusing on what unites and not what divides, how to behave online, how to start and run a small business.
These are lessons we could add to our South African classrooms. Education is everything!
I have a new short book everyone!
It is called A Tree, a Human and a Robot. This short book is a collection of three articles that I published in 2024, covering themes of Artificial Intelligence, Humanities, and Environmentalism. Like all my work, these pieces explore subjects that shape the trajectory of our society. “The Bedtime Story” is a fantastic read that reconnects the reader with nature. “Africa Colonized the World” tackles an emotional subject, encouraging introspection on a narrative shared among citizens. “The Mzansi AI Manual” provides an easy-to-understand and fascinating overview of everything you need to know about AI. Decision-makers both at home and office are attempting to navigate the challenges in South Africa. This book offers fresh insights and a new perspective on three major issues influencing our future.
Please consider becoming a Change Champion and Future Thinker, enjoy the book!
PAPERBACK:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6NCKFMM/M/
EBOOK:
https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Human-Robot-Jean-Pierre-Murray-Kline-ebook/dp/B0D41QQMVD/
The End!
HUNGRY FOR MORE NUGGETS?
But wait, there is MORE!
Who is Jean-Pierre Murray-Kline?
Jean-Pierre is a South African serial e-entrepreneur, published author, and change champion who has worked in over 300 types of industries in some capacity or another. His own online businesses have generated millions of Rands and involved sectors such as law, web & app development, events & entertainment, property, technical services, media, and tourism.
He has traveled to over 180 cities worldwide and is extremely active as a business and environmental technologist. In addition to his own projects, he researches and consults on all things online: marketing, reputation, compliance, law, and e-security, and also offers strategy workshops and scenario sessions on future thinking with a key focus on technology, the environment, and global influences.
Jean-Pierre is often asked to be a guest speaker on a variety of subjects he continuously studies and writes about.
Disclaimer:
- While I attempt to ensure information is accurate and up-to-date at time of publication, I will not accept liability should information be used, and found to be incorrect. If you do see an error, please let me know.
- The links, images, videos and/ or text from this article are not necessarily under my direct management, ownership or care. Should you be the owner or manager of any content herein, and wish for the content to be removed, please let me know and it will be done.