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The Fourth Industrial Revolution will widen the gender digital gap

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Professor Tshilidzi Marwala is the seventh Rector of the United Nations (UN) University and UN Under Secretary-General.

Women are still under-represented in the digital sphere and need to be brought in to give shape to the transformation underway.

A month ago the International Women’s Forum South Africa (IWFSA) invited me to speak about the recommendations of the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (PC4IR) and their impact on women. 

When we talk of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), there are some broad debates.

Firstly, how do we as a country that has fallen behind in the previous three industrial revolutions make a seemingly quantum leap to the fourth?

Secondly, why are we so determined to position ourselves at the fore of this transition when even Klaus Schwab, who coined the 4IR term, has admitted that there is the potential to widen our inequalities? Already, South Africa is classified as the world’s most unequal country – so why risk deepening this?

Third, in a labour market that favours men over women, why are we looking to adopt technology that could worsen our already wide gender digital gap? 

As it stands, women in South Africa have lower digital literacy and less access to internet-based technologies than men. These are all very valid concerns. Yet, they collectively call for the implementation of the 4IR – as long as the right policies are in place. We need an enabling framework that addresses our missteps in the previous industrial revolutions, and that seeks to provide solutions to our divides, in every sense, especially concerning women.

Herein lies the crux of the work of the CP4IR, which was established in 2019 and of which I am a deputy chair. The role of this commission is to assist the government in taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the digital industrial revolution.

We have a set of eight preliminary recommendations to achieve this:

  • the government needs to invest in human capacity development, primarily focusing on women. This should involve cultivating communication, logical and numeracy skills necessary to develop the capacity to code, think computationally and grow a holistic approach to problem-solving. 
  • to establish The National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute to apply AI to sectors such as health, safety, agriculture, finance, mining and manufacturing. It should ensure that AI skills that are predominantly based in the private sector flow to the public sector. Special focus should be on how AI can be used to prevent gender-based violence.
  • to establish an advanced manufacturing institute, to focus on reversing deindustrialisation in South Africa. Particular focus should be on how more women are brought into manufacturing, not just as workers, but also as owners of the means of production.
  • the establishment of the National Data Centre, which should focus on developing data storage and computing power through systems such as cloud facilities.
  • to incentivise 4IR industries. These incentives should include tax breaks, assistance with research and development support and in particular focus on women and small and medium enterprises.
  • to build 4IR infrastructure, which integrates with existing economic and social infrastructure. Fast and reliable internet connection is crucial to ensure that all, especially women, have a fair chance of fully participating in the digital economy. 
  • to review, amend or create policy and legislation in line with the 4IR to reduce the barriers for entry into the digital economy by women. In particular, the generation of intellectual property rights stands out in this context as the principle of a creative and knowledge economy implies the rapid production of new technologies, artefacts and processes for commercialisation and scale. 
  • to establish a 4IR strategy implementation co-ordination council that will co-ordinate government departments responsible for 4IR-related programmes  and should co-ordinate initiatives across the public and private sectors, labour and academia. 

As we implement these rather broad strategies, we still need to ensure that women are well situated to participate in the digital transformation and to shape it. 

As we bridge this divide, there also needs to be a move towards promoting the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths, as well as data analysis, computer science, engineering and the social sciences, which will ultimately advance numeracy skills – a prerequisite for many jobs in the 4IR. 

We have seen through important conversations around race and gender in recent weeks, that there is a fundamental need for diversity in organisations. Part of making this a reality is fighting the biases and the microaggressions that lead to discrimination and quite often, gender-based violence. 

Recently a post by  @CodingEngineer featured Lyndsey Scott, a former Victoria’s Secret model, who is proficient in coding went viral. Many of the comments on the post were negative and downplayed her accomplishments prompting Scott to reply:

“Looking at these comments, I wonder why 41% of women in technical careers drop out because of a hostile work environment. #gofigure.” 

There has to be a collective effort to address every one of these challenges to begin bridging the digital divide and ensuring that women are at the fore of this shift. DM

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