Decoding X Industrial Revolution - Kgadi Mmanakana

Decoding X Industrial Revolution Kgadi Mmanakana
Jogging the memory to create clarity and ease on 4IR
Introduction
Why I wrote the book
To Expand on The 4th Industrial Revolution and Career
Choices (2019)
To build on The 4th Industrial Revolution and Career:
What it really takes to succeed today, the book I wrote
for Students, Unemployed Graduates, and the Misfits on
what it takes to succeed today with the emergence of
the 4thIndustrial Revolution(4IR) and how it is changing
the world of work and making some skills irrelevant. The
book landed in the intended hands – students,
graduates, parents, teachers, academics – from across
South Africa to Botswana and Uganda. Besides the
appreciation received for the book – how insightful and
truthful it is, two post reading conversations inspired
me to write this book to expand on the concept of the
4th Industrial Revolution; a teacher wanted to know
what The 4th Industrial Revolution that she hears people
talking about is, and how 4IR can benefit her and her
students. And a business owner that was afraid of failing
because “they say we should adapt (4IR) or die. He
wanted to understand what 4IR means.

To create clarity and ease
The dawn of 4IR left everyone – from businesses,
government to individuals – in panic mode. Businesses
are caught up in the buzzword and they retreat by
trying to build technology products and by retrenching,
government driving tech startup movement in the
entrepreneurship development ecosystem and playing
catch-up with other countries, individuals (employees
and students) panicking about jobs being on the line
and lack thereof, respectively. As a result, the society
ends up resisting the change because they don’t
understand it and regard it as an enemy. So, with this
book I’m trying to simplify the buzzword by briefly
giving them context of the concept of Industrial
Revolution, where how and why it started – it is better
to deal with something you know than what you don’t
know, whether it impacts you positively or negatively – I
think. I think grasping the concept will enable them to
embrace change, participate in the revolution, and align
themselves accordingly whether it’s in revising policy
and legislation (for government), revising business
models (for businesses), or updating skills and
knowledge (for individuals – students and employees).

Acknowledgements
This book was possible because of the remarkable work
of fellow academics and researchers - their primary
research was instrumental in organizing this intel. The
Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016) by Professor Klaus
Schwab, The Industrial Revolution (2017) by Robert C.
Allen.
Heartfelt gratitude to all those that read The 4th
Industrial Revolution and Career Choices (2019), your
feedback, interest in and willingness to understand the
Industrial Revolution concept, inspired this book –
another easy read for you to catch up.

Genesis of Industrial Revolution
Capitalism
One influential theory attributes the Industrial
Revolution to the rise of capitalism. According to
socialist revolutionary, Karl Marx (1818-1883), who
stressed this explanation, capitalism was the only
economic system in which incentives led to economic
growth. In previous systems, redistributing income,
rather than creating new income, was the surest way
for people to improve their standard of living. Marx
conceived capitalism as a system with many competitive
firms where each firm had to increase its productivity,
or it would be driven out of business by competitors
who would do so. The result was a high rate of capital
accumulation and technological change. The secret to
explaining growth was, therefore, explaining the rise of
capitalism. Marx thought capitalism rose as a result of
reorganization of the rural society – feudal lords and
peasant farmers operating in the open fields were
replaced by landless labourers and large-scale ‘capital’
farms. While rural society did evolve in this way, it turns
out that capitalist agriculture was not much more
productive than the peasant agriculture which it
replaced. On the other hand, ‘the historical process of
divorcing the producer from the means of production’,
that is, depriving the peasants of land, implements, and
livestock so they had to become employees in order to
survive, may have increased their readiness to take up
handicraft production and migrate to cities to find work.

Key takeaway: Capitalism (read as one man for himself)
leads to intense competition which then pushes
businesses to change how they do things to be
outperform their rivals.
Globalisation
Marx also stressed the importance of globalization in
transforming the English economy. Europe’s overseas
expansion was accomplished by states competing for
hegemony, and each used imperialism and trade policy
to expand its wealth at the expense of its competitors.
Countries aimed to secure as much as possible of their
colonies’ trade for their own nationals through
‘mercantilist’ policies that excluded foreigners. When
tariffs failed, war was an acceptable alternative. In this
world, a country could succeed only through aggressive
imperialism, and England proved to have one of the
most growth promoting empires in Europe.
Slavery was a central feature of the global
economy.
Sugar, tobacco, and cotton were grown in the
Caribbean and USA on plantations operated by
slaves. These trades were substantial and
lucrative, and the raw cotton imported by Britain
from the USA after 1800 was the essential raw
material of the Industrial Revolution. Many
believe that the slave system was the foundation
of the Industrial Revolution, and, in particular,
that profits from slavery financed the

accumulation of capital in Britain. But while
there were case-by-case connections, profits
from slavery in total were not substantial
enough to explain the rise in investment that
took place during the Industrial Revolution.
Key takeaway: Competition between nationalities and
countries. The country/nation that dominated the
market had the capital to invest in new systems and had
power to carve paths for new business models. (If you
may, call this capitalist nations)
Scientific Revolution
The Scientific Revolution of the 17thcentury contributed
both new knowledge—in particular, the discovery of
atmospheric pressure and the vacuum—and new
attitudes and practices. People came to study the world,
including technology, ‘scientifically’, and that approach
brought rewards in the realm of invention.
Breakthroughs were due to ‘macro inventors’, who
thought outside of the box and created wholly novel
technologies. The macro inventors were often leading
scientists or were influenced and informed by students,
associates, or friends. Many people were connected to
the scientific vanguard through networks that diffused
the knowledge and attitudes of the Enlightenment
across a broad swath of British society, making it more
technologically creative.
The Royal Society, founded in 1660, was at the
apex of this network, which also included

provincial associations like Birmingham’s Lunar
Society as well as a myriad of coffee houses and
similar venues where scientific demonstrations
were performed. These communication
channels, as well as the widely held belief that
technology could be advanced by observation
and reason, is referred to as the ‘Industrial
Enlightenment’. The formation of those
networks and the adoption of those attitudes
could, of course, have been responses to an
increase in the profitability of invention, but
proponents of the Industrial Enlightenment view
of the Industrial Revolution see it as a cultural
development whose origin lay in the Scientific
Revolution and the broader Enlightenment
rather than in economics.
Key takeaway: Curiosity unlocked creative thinking in
individuals which led to inventions.

Why Britain and Industrial Revolution are inseparable.
The Industrial Revolution was Britain’s path breaking
response to the challenges of the first globalization
launched by the voyages of Vasco da Gama and
Christopher Columbus.
There were several connections; First, the
growth in world trade brought new products to
Britain including Chinese porcelain and Indian
cotton cloth. They were in high demand, and
British firms sought to imitate them. Second, the
growth in trade and empire opened new
markets for British products, and the ensuing
expansion of production and commerce
generated unusually high wages and cheap
energy. How to compete in that environment
was the overriding engineering challenge that
British industry so creatively met. Third, the
commercial expansion and the rise in wages
aided British industry in meeting the challenge of
foreign competition by improving the health and
strength of the workforce and by raising the
returns to education and skill. The result was a
rise in literacy, numeracy, and trade skills that
underpinned the manufacturing sector.

The Industrial Revolution begins
The Industrial revolution took place from the 18th up
until the mid-19th century, marking a process of
increased manufacturing and production which boosted
industry and encouraged new inventions and
innovations.During Industrial Revolution, manufacturing
technology was revolutionized as factories replaced
handicraft methods, Productivity leaped up through the
invention of machines to spin and weave cloth; the
perfection of the steam engine so that it became a
widely used source of power; the replacement of
charcoal by coal in the smelting and refining of iron; and
the construction of the first railways. The continuous
search for improved methods of production became
normal business practice. Cities grew as people shifted
from farming to industry and commerce.
Although the revolution brought about productivity and
boosted the industry, it also had a dark side – technical
change threw many people out of work. 12-hour
workdays were normal in the new factories, and the
remuneration was meagre. Workers’ housing in the
expanding cities was often squalid and lacked effective
sanitation and safe drinking water. The cities were
polluted.
There were great gainers as well as great losers in the
Industrial Revolution, and their aspirations and
predicaments influenced social and political life
generally.

Most agricultural land was owned by perhaps
15,000 families, and members of this group
dominated parliament and held most of the high
political offices throughout the Industrial
Revolution. While the landowners claimed to act
in the national interest, they often advanced
their own at the expense of other groups—a
notable example being the Corn Laws of 1815,
which aimed to keep the price of wheat high in
Britain by excluding cheap imported grain. Mass
mobilization to extend the franchise and
increase the representation of cities in
parliament led to the Reform Act of 1832, which
gave the vote to many in the middle class but
not to the workers of the country. The Chartist
movement in the 1830sand 1840s sought
universal male suffrage, but these petitions were
always rejected. The upper classes regarded
democracy as a threat to their property and
power so long as wages were stagnant, and
poverty was a source of discontent. It was only
in the mid-19th century that machine production
finally liquidated the hand trades. After that,
wages started to rise as high productivity jobs
were created faster than low productivity jobs
were destroyed. The Industrial Revolution was
finished, and, in 1867, the upper strata of the
working class at last got the vote.

The Industrial Revolution was the result of economic
change as well as the cause of it, and this is because of
the events that built up to the revolution itself.
Reinforcing revolutions – building up to the Industrial
Revolution
• Technological changes - Technological change is
the motor that powers economic growth, and a
technological revolution was at the heart of the
Industrial Revolution. The most celebrated
gadgets were in the iron and cotton industries,
and in power generation.
Abraham Darby’s successful smelting of
pig iron with coke rather than charcoal,
the traditional fuel, in 1709initiated the
changes in the iron industry. Huntsman
revolutionized the production of steel
with the crucible process in the 1740s;
Cotton had always been spun by hand on
wheels or with a distaff and spindle until
James Hargreaves invented the Spinning
Jenny in the 1760s; Power technology
was shifted from traditional or organic
sources (e.g., Wood and charcoal, wind,
water) to coal, with the invention of the
steam engine by Thomas Newcomen in

the early 1700s and its improvement by
James Watt in the 1760s.
• Demographic revolution - A demographic
revolution accompanied the technological
changes.
The population of Great Britain was
constant at about 6.5 million between
1650and 1750 after which it started to
grow, reaching 10.5 million in 1800;
20.8in 1850; 37 in 1900; and 50 million in
1950. Since then, the rate of natural
increase has been very low. The
relationship between population growth
and economic variables like
industrialization, incomes, urbanization,
and education has been the subject of
research and debate since Thomas
Malthus ’seminal Essay on the Principle of
Population (1798). Malthus theorized
that populations grew in geometric
progression, and that food production
increases in arithmetic progression. With
the conclusion that populations will grow
faster than the supply of food, and this
exponential population growth will lead
to a shortage of food.

• An urban revolution also occurred, but it started
before the Industrial Revolution.
In 1500 only 7 per cent of the English
population lived in towns and cities of
5,000 people or more. By 1750 that
fraction increased to23 per cent—and it
kept growing as the population
expanded, reaching 50per cent in 1850;
and 75 per cent in 1910. London grew
from small beginnings to become the
largest city in Europe. The capital’s
population increased from 50,000 in
1500 to 200,000 in 1600; to 500,000 in
1700; and, finally, to one million in 1800.
• An agricultural revolution was needed to feed
the rapidly growing cities, and this began in the
17th century as grain yields rose, cows and
sheep gave more milk and wool, and animals
were reared to greater weights. The
improvements were due to better seed
selection, improved soil preparation (in part due
to better equipment), selective breeding, and
new crop rotations including fodder crops like
turnips and clover. At the same time as, farming
practice was getting better, the common fields
and pastures were being enclosed and small
family farms were being combined into large
‘capital’ farms operated with hired labour. A

long-standing view was that the enclosures and
large farms were responsible for the
improvements in practice and productivity, but
that claim has been repeatedly called into
question. Farm output continued to expand
during the Industrial Revolution, but Britain
became more and more dependent on imported
food, as rising demand outstripped domestic
supply.
• Commercial Revolution - Exports and imports
became increasingly important relative to
national income.
In the 17th century, England exported
increasing volumes of wool textiles, iron
goods, and other manufactured items,
while it imported ever more spices,
sugar, tobacco, and tropical produce.
• Transportation revolutions underpinned the
growth in trade.
In the 17th and18th centuries, better
sailing vessels cut ocean freight rates. In
the 18thcentury, inland shipping costs fell
as a canal system was built and roads
were improved. Travel times were cut as
vehicles went faster. After 1830, the
railway further reduced overland
transport costs, and steam ships
eventually did the same for the seas. A

world economy arose, and globalization
promoted the industrialization of Britain,
as it deindustrialized the Third World.
• Financial revolution - Economic growth required
the construction of cities, factories, and
transportation facilities, and the growth in
commerce required an expansion of trade credit.
And these needs were met through a financial
revolution.
In the late 17th century, legal changes
created the modern mortgage, so that
land could be used as security to raise
long term loans. English agricultural
estates were mortgaged, and the
proceeds paid for the construction of
cities. The public finances were
reordered in the 1690s with the
establishment of the Bank of England and
the refunding of the national debt.
Private banks developed in London that
mainly financed international trade. The
manufacturing firms of the Industrial
Revolution started as small partnerships,
and their factories were financed with
the funds of the proprietors. As
businesses came to outlive their owners,
the corporate form of organization was

permitted in manufacturing in the middle
of the 19thcentury.
Stages of Industrial Revolution
1st Industrial revolution
The First Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century
through the use of steam power and mechanization of
production. What before produced threads on spinning
wheels, the mechanized version achieved eight times
the volume at the same time. Steam power was already
known, and the use of it for industrial purposes was the
greatest breakthrough for increasing human
productivity. Instead of weaving looms powered by
muscle, steam engines could be used for power.
Development such as the steam-powered locomotion
brought about further massive changes because
humans and goods could move great distance in fewer
hours.
2nd Industrial Revolution
The Second Industrial Revolution began in the 19th
century through the discovery of electricity and
assembly line production. Henry Ford (1863-1974) took
the idea of mass production from a slaughterhouse in
Chicago – the pigs hung from conveyor belts and each
butcher performed only a part of the task butchering
the animal. He carried over these principles into
automobile production and drastically altered it in the

process. Before one station assembled an entire
automobile, now the vehicles were produced in partial
steps on the conveyor belt significantly faster and at
lower cost.
3rd Industrial Revolution
The Third Industrial Revolution began in the 20th
century, in the 1970s through partial automation using
memory-programmable controls and computers. Since
the introduction of these technologies, we are now able
to automate an entire production process without
human assistance. Known examples of these are robots
that perform programmed sequences without human
intervention.
4th Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution began in the 21st
Century and is characterized by application of
information and communication technologies to
industries. It builds on the developments of the 3rd
Industrial Revolution – production systems that already
have computer technology are expanded by a network
connection and have a digital twin on the internet so to
speak. These allow communication with other facilities
and the output of information about themselves. This is
the next step in production automation. The
networking of all systems leads to ‘cyber-physical

production systems and therefore smart factories in
which productions systems, components and people
communicate via a network and production is nearly
autonomous.

Understanding Technological Revolution
– Expanding on 4IR
Technological Revolution is a period in which one or
more technologies is replaced by another technology in
a short amount of time. It is an era of accelerated
technological progress characterized by new
innovations whose rapid application and diffusion cause
an abrupt change in society.
The Spinning Jenny and Spinning Mule greatly
increased the productivity of thread
manufacturing compared to the spinning wheel.
The steam engine, fueled primarily by coal,
propelled the Industrial Revolution in Great
Britain and the world.
IBM Personal computer XT in 1988 was an
invention that dramatically changed not only
professional life but personal life as well.
A technological revolution increases productivity and
efficiency. It may involve material or ideological changes
caused by the introduction of a device or system. And it
can play a role of a trigger of a chain of various and
unpredictable changes. Some of its potential impacts
are business management, and social interactions.
The consequences of a technological revolution are not
necessarily positive. For example, innovations such as
the use of coal as an energy source has a negative

environmental impact – hence the current agenda of
green energy.
The economy of the Industrial Revolution was unstable.
As the machines were invented, they outcompeted the
handicraft sector whose large size had been responsible
for the high wages that made labour-saving machines
profitable in the first place. The adoption of machinery
led to massive technological unemployment in one
handicraft trade after another. The growth of the
handicraft sector in the 17th and 18th centuries, thus,
contained the seeds of its own destruction. The genius
of capitalism consists as much in destroying the old
production systems as it does in creating the new. The
process is one that an Economist, Joseph Schumpeter,
(1883 -1950) described as a ‘perennial gale of creative
destruction’, that is, to replace in whole or in part
inferior innovations across markets and industries,
simultaneously creating new products including new
business models. The gale blew strongly in the Industrial
Revolution producing poverty at the same time as it
brought progress.

Key takeaways
• The prime aim of industrial revolution is to bring
about technological progress to increase
productivity and efficiency.
• The technological revolution will always contain
the seeds of destruction.
• Capitalism (read as quest to gain competitive
advantage) plays a role in initiating an industrial
revolution.
Breaking down the buzzword – 4th Industrial
Revolution
The phrase, Fourth Industrial Revolution was first
introduced by Professor Klaus Schwab, executive
chairman of the World Economic Forum, in a 2015
article in Foreign Affairs. “Mastering the Fourth
Industrial Revolution” was the theme of the WEF Annual
Meeting in 2016 Davos.
Previous industrial revolutions liberated humankind
from animal power, made mass production possible and
brought digital capabilities to billions of people. The 4th
Industrial Revolution is, however, fundamentally
different. It is characterized by a range of new
technologies that are fusing the physical, biological, and
digital worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies, and
industries.

Benefits and challenges
The shifts and disruptions that come as a result of the
4th Industrial Revolution ignite both progress and pain.
The world has the potential to connect an individual to
billions of people through digital networks, dramatically
improve organizational efficiency and even manage
assets in ways that can help regenerate the natural
environment potentially undoing the damage of
previous industrial revolutions.
Conversely, the organizations might be unable to adapt,
government may fail to employ and regulate new
technologies to capture their benefits, inequalities may
grow, security concerns may arise.
The consumer is gaining the most –the fourth industrial
revolution has made possible new products and services
that increase, at virtually no cost, the efficiency of our
personal lives as consumers.
Ordering a cab, finding a flight, buying a product,
making a payment, listening to music, or
watching a film – any of these tasks can now be
done remotely. The benefits of technology for all
of us who consume are incontrovertible. The
internet, the smart phone and the thousands of
apps are making our lives easier, and – on the
whole – more productive. A simple device such
as a tablet, which we use for reading, browsing,
and communicating, possesses the equivalent

processing power of 5,000 desktop computers
from 30 years ago.
The challenges created by the fourth industrial
revolution appear to be mostly on the supply side – in
the world of work and production.
The great beneficiaries of the fourth industrial
revolution are the providers of intellectual or
physical capital – the innovators, the investors,
and the shareholders, which explains the rising
gap in wealth between those who depend on
their labour and those who own capital.
Shifts to expect
• In business; Emergence of new business models,
the reshaping of production, consumption,
transportation, and delivery systems.
• On the societal front, change in how we work,
communicate, express, inform and entertain
ourselves.
• Governments and institutions; the reshaping of
education, healthcare, and transportation etc
systems.

Factors characterizing 4IR
• Velocity: Evolution happens at an exponential
rather than linear pace. This is the result of the
multifaceted, deeply interconnected world we
live in and the fact that new technology begets
newer and ever more capable technology.
• Breadth and depth: It build on the digital
revolution and combines multiple technologies
that are leading to unprecedented paradigm
shifts in the economy, business, society, and
individually. It is not only changing the “what”
and the “how” of doing things but also “who” we
are.
• Systems Impact: It involves the transformation
of entire systems, across (and within) countries,
companies, industries, and society as a whole.

The Elephant in the room – Impact of 4IR
on jobs and employment
Despite the potential positive impact of technology on
economic growth, itis nonetheless essential to address
its possible negative impact, at least in the short term,
on the labour market. Fears about the impact of
technology on jobs are not new.
In 1931, the economist John Maynard Keynes
famously warned about widespread
technological unemployment “due to our
discovery of means of economising the use of
labour outrunning the pace at which we can find
new uses for labour”. (Keynes, 1933, p. 3).
Over the past few years, the debate has been reignited
by evidence of computers substituting for a number of
jobs, most notably bookkeepers, cashiers and telephone
operators.
As a result of the driving factors of 4IR - speed
(everything happening at a much faster pace than ever
before), breadth and depth (so many radical changes
occurring simultaneously), and the complete
transformation of entire systems, new technologies are
dramatically changing the nature of work across all
industries and occupations. The fundamental
uncertainty has been about the extent to which
automation will substitute labour.

Two competing effects that technology exercises on
employment:
Destruction effect as technology-fuelled
disruption and automation substitute capital for
labour, forcing workers to become unemployed
or to reallocate their skills elsewhere.
Capitalization effect in which the demand for
new goods and services increases and leads to
the creation of new occupations, businesses and
even industries.
There are roughly two opposing camps when it comes
to the impact of emerging technologies on the labour
market: those who believe in a happy ending – in which
workers displaced by technology will find new jobs, and
where technology will unleash a new era of prosperity;
and those who believe it will lead to a progressive social
and political Armageddon by creating technological
unemployment on a massive scale.
Question to ponder on: What should we do to foster
more positive outcomes and help those caught in the
transition?

Labour substitution
Many different categories of work, particularly those
that involve mechanically repetitive and precise manual
labour, have already been automated. Many others will
follow, as computing power continues to grow
exponentially. Sooner than most anticipate, the work of
professions as different as lawyers, financial analysts,
doctors, journalists, accountants, or librarians may be
partly or completely automated.
The fourth industrial revolution seems to be creating
fewer jobs in new industries than previous revolutions.
A recent US Economic Census shed some
interesting light on the relationship between
technology and unemployment. It showed that
innovations in information and other disruptive
technologies tend to raise productivity by
replacing existing workers, rather than creating
new products needing more labour to produce
them.
Two researchers from the Oxford Martin School,
economist Carl Benedikt Frey and machine learning
expert Michael Osborne, have quantified the potential
effect of technological innovation on unemployment by
ranking 702different professions according to their
probability of being automated, from the least
susceptible to the risk of automation (“0” corresponding
to no risk at all) to those that are the most susceptible

to the risk (“1” corresponding toa certain risk of the job
being replaced by a computer of some sort).
Their research concludes that about 47% of total
employment in the US is at risk, perhaps over the next
decade or two, characterized by a much broader scope
of job destruction at a much faster pace than labour
market shifts experienced in previous industrial
revolutions. In addition, the trend is towards greater
polarization in the labour market. Employment will grow
in high-income cognitive and creative jobs and low-
income manual occupations, but it will greatly diminish
for middle-income routine and repetitive jobs.
Examples of professions most and least prone to
automation.
Most Prone to automation
Probability Occupation
0.99 Telemarketers
0.99 Tax preparers
0.98 Insurance appraisers, auto
damage
0.98 Referees, other sports
officials
0.98 Legal secretaries
0.97 Hosts, hostesses,
0.97 Real estate brokers
0.97 Farm labour contractors
0.96 Secretaries, administrative
assistants
0.94 Couriers and messengers

Least Prone to automation
0.0031 Mental Health and
Substance Abuse Social
Workers
0.0040 Choreographers
0.0042 Physicians and Surgeons
0.0043 Psychologists
0.0055 Human Resource Managers
0.0065 Computer System Analysts
0.0077 Anthropologists and
archaeologists
0.0100 Marine Engineers and Naval
Architects
0.0130 Sales Managers
0.0150 Chief Executives

Source: Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne,
University of Oxford, 2013

What’s driving the substitution
An increased abilities of algorithms and robots to
simplify jobs. Companies are interested in simplifying
jobs. This job simplification means that algorithms are
better able to replace humans.
Discrete, well-defined tasks lead to better
monitoring and more high-quality data around
the task, thereby creating a better base from
which algorithms can be designed to do the
work.
It is not a man-versus-machine dilemma.
The fusion of digital, physical, and biological
technologies driving the current changes [can] serve to
enhance human labour and cognition. Leaders need to
prepare workforces and develop education models to
work with, and alongside, increasingly capable,
connected, and intelligent machines.
Impact on skills
Complex problem solving, social and systems skills will
be far more in demand compared to physical abilities or
content skills.
Evolving nature of work – on-demand economy
Employers are using the “human cloud” to get things
done. Professional activities are dissected into precise
assignments and discrete projects and then thrown into
a virtual cloud of aspiring workers located anywhere in

the world. This is the new on-demand economy, where
providers of labour are no longer employees in the
traditional sense but rather independent workers who
perform specific tasks.
As human cloud platforms classify workers asself-
employed, employers become free of the requirement
to pay minimum wages, employer taxes and social
benefits. For the people who are in the cloud, the main
advantages reside in the freedom (to work or not) and
the unrivalled mobility that they enjoy by belonging to a
global virtual network. Some independent workers see
this as offering the ideal combination of a lot of
freedom, less stress and greater job satisfaction.
Downsides: Human cloud platforms accelerate
automation of jobs [thus increasing unemployment],
and exempt ‘employees’ from job security, labour rights
etc. This in turn can create a potent source for political
instability and social unrest.

4IR in a Developing Country – South
Africa
South African solutions for South African problems
How 4IR unfolds in South Africa will depend on whether
we make conscious choices or act with recklessness
toward the growing economic, environmental, and
social challenges. If we are to leverage on this wave of
revolution – socioeconomically – SA needs to ignore the
milestones of other countries. Instead of worrying about
(and wanting to “catch up” with) China rolling out 6G,
we should focus on ensuring that 4G is rolled out fully
and connectivity in the country is ‘balanced’ - equality.
And with the knowledge gap that still exists, people still
trying to grasp the benefits of prior industrial
revolutions, we shouldn’t be in a rush to keep up with
other countries as that will make the transition rather
difficult.
Poor education, low levels of R&D and the lack of
commercialized new technology together lessen
developing regions’ ability to steer the direction of
development.
The first step towards the right direction (that is,
reaping the fruits of this revolution) is by charting the
pressing issues facing South Africa and then analysing
the technologies that come with 4IR to unearth how

they can help in solving the [real] problems we are
faced with.
A “smart city” in a country with energy crisis and
expensive data doesn’t make sense to me.
Perhaps if we dealt with the energy crisis first
and access to technologies and data, we could
talk about “smart cities”- going fancy? That’s if
we are trying to create a democratized field of
opportunities.
Where SA can start in leveraging 4IR
• Education – Customized curricula linked to what
lies ahead. Equip the citizens with skills and
knowledge that is practical and can be used to
solve socio-economic problems we are faced
with. If we are adding robotics as a subject,
there has to be a quantifiable measure – reason
– why it is relevant.
• Health Care – Lives are lost, and citizens are
crying because of weak service delivery (read as
customer service). Perhaps using 4IR
technologies to develop efficient [in the context
of time] service management system in public
health system could end this?
• Law Enforcement – The citizens are losing trust
in the justice system, and this led to crimes going
unreported – citizens are dying in silence not
because they don’t want to speak up. Accessible
digital forensic services and a human free system

of reporting “special crimes” – domestic
violence, rape, femicide etc. perhaps?
• Agile governance - regulatory and legislative
ecosystem that can produce more resilient
frameworks. Productive deliberation and
brainstorming – foresight, practical, context.
Rise in inequality
Today people are much more aware of and sensitive to
social injustices and the discrepancies in living
conditions between different regions/provinces. Unless
public and private sector leaders assure citizens that
they are executing credible strategies to improve
peoples’ lives, social unrest, mass migration, and violent
extremism could intensify, thus creating risks for
country’s development at all stages.
It is crucial that people are secure in the belief that they
can engage in meaningful work to support themselves
and their families, but what happens if there is
insufficient demand for labour, or if the skills available
no longer match the demand?
Fairness should be ensured in the distribution of the
benefits and positive externalities of the 4IR. The
experience of past political revolutions teaches us that
disparity has consequences. The failure of many
democratic systems to address disparities in wealth or
opportunity stemming from prevailing economic models
has led to entrenched social and economic imbalances
that are both divisive and destabilizing (think of land

issues, access to education and gender inequalities (in
the context of wages) in SA). We must seek to share the
benefits of this technological age among all citizens
regardless of age, income, race, gender and sexual
orientation, or beliefs.

Riding with the wave of 4IR to adapt and
win
To benefit from the 4th Industrial Revolution, leverage of
IT and digital technologies - All new developments and
technologies have one key feature in common: they
leverage the pervasive power of digitization and
information technology to: Reform the physical world
(e.g., Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Advanced
Materials; Additive Manufacturing and
Multidimensional Printing). Alter the human being (e.g.,
Biotechnologies, Neurotechnology, Virtual and
Augmented Realities)
As a student or business or government, the following
are some of the areas you should be investing in.
[Student – studying. Business – entrepreneurial
ventures and innovation. Government – SMME
development policies and investments]
• 3D manufacturing/printing
• Advanced robotics
• New materials
• Autonomous vehicles/Drone technology
• Internet of Things [Smaller, Smarter, and
cheaper Sensors connecting things in the
physical world to virtual networks; Blockchain;
Bitcoin; Platform economy.]
• Genetic Editing and Sequencing – With advances
in computing power, scientists no longer go by
trial and error; rather, they test the way in which

specific genetic variations generate particular
traits and diseases.
• Biofuel production

About the Author
Kgadi Mmanakana is a Professional Consultant, Scholar
and Speaker on Entrepreneurship and Strategy
reconciling the concepts of Design Thinking,
Competitive Strategy and Business Model Innovation
with Economic Theories to help businesses gain
Competitive Advantage in ever changing market
environments.
www.kgadimmanakana.co.za
How can I further help you?
For Businesses
• Leverage on 4IR to innovate on your business
model?
• Brainstorm business idea(s) that will ride on the
4IR wave?
• Practical change management strategies on
quest to adapt to 4IR?
For Individuals (Students and Employees):
• Career coaching – Connect your passionate
interests, education level and Ideal profession
with 4IR and the reality of the future of work?

For Government
• Get practical and contextual strategies on how
to keep the public education competitive for the
ruthless competitive future of work – in the era
of automation?
• Get practical and contextual strategies on how
to leverage on 4IR to invest in your
local/provincial/national government, optimize
service delivery, and achieve development
goals?
• Get perspective and intel on how to configure
SMME development policies and
entrepreneurship development ecosystem
(whether at local, provincial, or national level) to
enable you to invest in SMMEs that are not
flavours of the month but are sustainable,
contribute directly to your specific
local/provincial/national sustainable
development goals, and leverage on relevant 4IR
technologies to keep them relevant?

Engage me
Let’s discuss the content – the ideologies and realities
you’ve discovered, Feedback on the book.
kgadi@bravingcorp.com | www.kgadimmanakana.co.za
www.facebook.com/kgadimmanakana
www.linkedin.com/in/kgadimmanakana

Decoding X Industrial Revolution - Kgadi Mmanakana

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