South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP) tackles four broad challenges: unemployment, inequality, poverty and sustaining socioeconomic inclusion. We have recognised that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) will be the driver of the changes we want to embrace in an inclusive South Africa. To achieve this, there needs to be a dramatic change in our education system and in the prioritisation of basic quality infrastructure that will be the backbone of our Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and subsequent revolutions in South Africa.
We talk of leapfrogging technologies, but while we wish for this to be our trajectory, this is not a reality for many South Africans. Covid-19 has shown us that the ability to problem-solve is now even more imperative in a fast-paced world and it needs to happen radically. While we have debated this at length, our future-readiness for industry 4IR must be seriously addressed since there is no silver bullet for the creation of this enabling environment.