The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) is finally here. This is an era that is fusing hardware, software, biology and emphasizes advances in communication and connectivity.
Industry 4.0 is facilitating technological breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, The Internet of Things, Autonomous Vehicles, Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, mobile-money and digital payments. With the advent of the Corona Virus that has wreaked havoc across the world in recent months destabilizing financial markets, we are likely to see the onset of a global recession that will re-order the capitalist-economic system as we know it today.
In this respect, The Fourth Industrial revolution (4IR) will play a pivotal role in accelerating use of technologies highlighted above, and as a continent, we need to leverage on new innovative technologies to help us navigate the new complexities that will arise. In Kenya for instance, with government directives issued on closing times and curfews for most business to mitigate the spread of the virus, most eateries and fast-food restaurants are now only serving takeaway services with no opportunity for sitting or resting to adhere to social distancing principles set out by the World Health Organization (WHO) and world governments.
This has seen a sharp increase in demand for services offered by food-delivery service companies and mobile-phone based applications that offer technology to buy food online from retailers, supermarkets, eateries and restaurants. As the world enters a new phase of the fourth industrial revolution, corporations, private enterprises, governments, researchers and universities will need to think of new innovative ways leveraging technology to effectively adjust to the new normal. More capital investments in digital services such as digital money and mobile based loans
will ensure money circulation is maintained at optimal levels (especially in labor-intensive economies such as Kenya) even as social distancing requirements limit human-to-human interaction. The time is now for Africa to rise to the challenge and aggressively innovate new ways that can serve its citizens, ways that can be adopted across the world during this time of crisis.
