BCM hosts major ICT summit

Stakeholders to focus on government sector in bid for ‘ inclusive economy’

Key players in the ICT sector converged in BCM for the 14th annual ICT summit this week.
Imbizo Events CEO Motse Mfuleni said this year’s summit aimed to address ICT governance and create an inclusive economy in the sector.
“We need to develop governance models that can prevent situations such as municipal systems being hacked, as we saw in Nelson Mandela Bay and Buffalo City metros, compromising their data and costing them a lot of money to recover.
“We saw similar hacks with the Liberty scandal, which caused havoc around the country, as well as the Gupta leaks, and on an international scale, the Panama files [11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney-client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities].
“We are seeing hacking almost every day, with the stealing of people's profiles – something that could affect anybody nowadays,” he said.
Mfuleni said as more people learnt coding, it became easier to break through the firewalls of massive companies.
“We will also be engaging in South Africa's readiness with regard to 5G, which will be launched around the world in March.”
Mfuleni said 5G – or fifth generation – mobile communications technology’s performance-targeted high data rates, reduced latency, saved energy, reduced costs, had a higher system capacity and massively increased device connectivity.
“5G is more software driven, it's more about the process – so we need more coders and developers who are going to understand the process holistically,” he said.
With more than 40 speakers and 1,200 delegates expected to attend, the summit aims to prepare SMMEs in the province to tap into a share of the market in the fast-growing sector, with ICT ranked amongst the top five sectors in SA, in terms of its contribution to the GDP.
Speakers include MTN CEO Godfrey Motsa, Vodacom business CEO William Mzimba, deputy minister of telecommunications Stella Abrahams-Ndabeni and finance & tourism MEC Oscar Mabuyane.
KZN head of the state IT agency Sabelo Siwundla, said he aimed to raise awareness of and unpack opportunities in the health sector.
“According to the international telecommunications union there are more than 90 million units in South Africa registered on a network.
“With about 56 million people in the country, it tells you that there are many people with multiple devices...

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