4IR

1. 4th Industrial Revolution
DR SHEKU ALFRED KANU

2. Theme:
“Good governance practices with
emphasis on information and
communications technology (ICT), service
delivery and youth empowerment”

3. Overview
- Historical perspectives on industrial revolutions
- Meaning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)
- Opportunities and challenges of the 4IR
- The 4IR and implications for agriculture
- Concluding remarks: RSA’s readiness for the 4IR
- Conclusion and recommendations

4. Historical perspectives on industrial
revolutions (IR) (Adapted from Xu et al., 2018)
Type
of IR
Period Energy
Resource
Main
Technical
Achievement
Main
Developed
Industries
Means of
Transport
I 1760-1900 Coal Steam Engine Textile, steel Train
II 1900-1960 Oil,
Electricity
Internal
Combustion
Engine
Metallurgy,
Auto, Machine
Building
Train, Car,
Ship
III 1960-2000 Natural
Gas,
Nuclear
Energy
Computers,
Robots
Auto,
Chemistry
Car, Plane,
Ship
IV 2000- Green
Energies
Internet, 3D
Printer,
Genetic
Engineering
High Tech
Industries
Electric
car, Ultra-
Fast Train

5. Meaning of 4IR
• In 2016, Klaus Schwab and the World Economic
Forum declared the arrival of the 4IR.
• The 4IR is characterized by a fusion of
technologies that blurs the lines between the
physical, digital, and biological spheres
(Schwab, 2017).

6. Meaning of 4IR
 The 4IR is the current and developing
environment in which disruptive technologies
and trends such as Internet of Things (IoT),
robotics, virtual reality (VR) and artificial
intelligence (AI) are changing the way we live,
eat, socialize and work.
 The concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
is defined as the revolutionary change based on
recent diverse technologies (Lee et al., 2018).

7. • 4IR is more about technology-driven change and
an opportunity to help everyone (leaders, policy–
makers and people from all income groups and
nations), to harness converging technologies to
create an inclusive, human-centred future.
• The revolution is about caring and sharing
because it is people centred.
• It has a range of new technologies fused together
(physical, digital and biological) as tools made by
people for people.

8. Foundations for 4IR: Inter-connectivity and
Adaptive Production
HUMAN
Digitization and Networking
Smart
Products &
Services
Innovative
Product
Development
Adaptive Production
Integrated Basic Technologies

9. Opportunities
1. Enabling new services and business models
- Customer intimacy and personalization
- Rapid time to market
- Smart products, new customer experience
- creation of new revenue streams
2. Delivering a step change in performance
- Massive change in efficiency and productivity
- End of global labour arbitrage
- Increased flexibility- mass customisation
- Variable, elastic capacity/cost models
- Sustainability

10. Opportunities (cont.)…
Predicted opportunities:
 Lower barriers between inventors and markets (3-D printing)
 More active role of artificial intelligence
 Integration of different technics and domain (convergence/fusion)
 Improved quality of life (robotics)
 The connected life (internet)

11. Key benefits of 4IR
4IR will raise income levels for entrepreneurs
Transportation and communication cost will drop
Technological innovations will improve long-term gains in
productivity and efficiency
Logistics and global supply chains will become more effective
and the transaction cost will diminish, ultimately resulting to
opening of new markets and drive economic growth.

12. Practical examples
• Mining – chemical running down of Tailings/mine
dumps has brought new jobs through
intervention by 4IR.
• AMD- water remediation technologies for
irrigation resulting in increased food production.
• Agriculture- BT maize can resist Fall Army
worm/weevils.
• Acutechnology- machines do precise packaging
and stitching- enhance throughput.
• Cell phone banking (east Africa)-- GDP grows.

13. Challenges of 4IR
 4IR could lead to greater inequality because it has huge
potential to disrupt labour markets (massive job losses).
 In the future, talent will represent the critical factor of
production and people with ideas to contribute to the
revolution will become scarce and the quest for talented
people will increase segregation.
 Issue of cybersecurity, hacking, risk assessment and others.
 New ethical issues arising (debates in genetic engineering).

14. Precision Agriculture (PA)
• It is a farming management concept that is based
on observing, measuring and responding to inter
and intra-field variability in crops.
• The purpose of PA research is to define a
decision support system for whole farm
management with the goal of optimizing returns
on inputs while preserving resources.

16. 4IR and PA
 4IR will impact agriculture massively (labour-
intensive field).
 The fusion of artificial intelligence and big data will
make allowance for “Precision Agriculture”.
 4IR will enhance aspects of Precision Agriculture
such as:
Yield monitoring
Diagnosing insects pest
 measuring soil moisture
Diagnosing harvest time
Monitoring crop heath status

18. Practical examples
• In the Free State - use of trackers or anti-stock
theft chips will cause job losses for shepherds
but will create jobs upstream especially in
sheep value chain.
• Maize production increased because of 4IR
(BT maize) but affected herbicide/pest
producers (Monsanto & Syngenta) even with
high infestation of Fall Army worm.

19. Genetic Engineering
• Genetic engineering refers to the set of
technologies that directly manipulate an
organism’s genes, change the genetic make up of
cells and add one or more new traits that are not
found in that organism.
• The genetic make-up of any organism is defined
by DNA. In nature, the genetic nature never
remains fixed.

21. Practical example:
The crystal (CRY) protein genes (from Bacillus
thuringiensis) were incorporated in BT Maize to
produces toxins that destroy the gut of invading pests.

22. Concluding remarks
• Is South Africa prepared and read for 4IR?

23. Is RSA ready for the 4IR?
• RSA should embrace competiveness brought
about by the 4IR
Improve access to information and use of
technology to bridge the current existing gaps in:
I. Health care services (chronic diseases),
II.Education (rural and urban dwellers),
III.Mining (beneficiation to create new jobs),
IV.Agriculture (accessibility to open markets).

24. RSA readiness for the 4IR Cont….
RSA needs to invest more on skills development
for the digital economy to include everyone in
the value chain.
Invest more in data acquisition/mobile
infrastructure (engines for big data, cloud
computing) and additional connectivity for
access to information.
Encourage business and industries to
understand that we are in the new era and must
embrace technology.

25. Conclusion and Recommendations
 4IR is here stay and it will bring about rapid dramatic
changes in the way we do our usual things…. We need to
take advantage of the opportunities and address the
challenges…Empower youth with skills…
 Start using 4IR compliance value adding technologies in
export grade products such as:
1. Autonomous potato crisps production
2. Autonomous maize meal production
3. Autonomous cooking oil production
4. Tracker-aided sheep feedlots (mutton, tannery, wool,
blood meal, meat-bone meal & glue).