Dr Denisha Jairam-Owthar, CIO of the Council for Medical Schemes, urges her IT peers to actively contribute to the development of South Africa's first National Artificial Intelligence strategy, while staying abreast of the latest advancements in the rapidly evolving IT landscape.
Being a CIO in today’s tech space is characterised by exponential speed. We have never experienced the speed of technology change we see today. With this backdrop, it makes a massive demand on CIOs to keep updated on the latest tech in a multidimensional way: it’s like having a career personified on a Formula 1 race track at all times.
Hence, the ability to multitask and stay up-to-date with speed and quality, balanced with good governance, become core attributes for CIOs (i.e., the ‘ambidextrous CIO’).
Not only should a CIO perform ‘home-work-home’ scenarios anymore, but due to the demanding nature of the ‘technological racetrack’, CIOs have to also share, listen, learn, impart, absorb and reflect on a frequent basis. This continuous process of keeping up is tiresome, and can leave CIOs somewhat breathless.
As AI unfolds further, our digital transformation initiatives have now had to accelerate even more. The need for the ambidextrous CIO has just been further enhanced, until we learn how to optimise the use of AI.
With the help of AI, however, once optimised in the context of an organisation, perhaps this technology racetrack can become more tenable. As we learn methodologies to leverage AI tools and rely on them, we might just be able to catch our breath a bit.
As South Africa formulates its first National Artificial Intelligence strategy as a country, I invite the CIO community to participate in this crucial technology strategy. As CIOs we deal with AI daily and pragmatically, hence our inputs are extremely necessary and valuable for South Africa.
Although this might not be an initiative as part of ‘home-work-home’ for CIO’s, I invite the ambidextrous CIOs to shine through all of you in the CIO South Africa community. We have an opportunity at present to formulate a collective legacy. We can’t, as per the previous industrial revolutions, ‘just let it happen to us’. We have an opportunity to craft a way forward together that our own future generations can build and rely on – let’s use the opportunity and not let it pass us by!
The development of South Africa's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy is organized into six collaborative workstreams. You are invited to get involved in any of the following areas:
- Collaboration and Partnerships
- Trust and Regulation
- Research and Innovation
- Strategic Sectors
- Future Skills and Work
- Data and Infrastructure
Additionally, you can participate in quarterly forums that provide updates on the progress of these workstreams.
For more information or to get involved, please contact:
- Dr Tapiwa Chiwewe: [email protected]
- Nonhlanhla Mathebula: [email protected]
- NACI AI Admin: [email protected]
