The ICT industry should stop wasting its money on top-heavy events like GovTech and rather invest in developing South Africa’s untapped youth market.
This is the word from Prof Barry Dwolatzky, who says companies with foresight would rather support events like the Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Festival because, as he points out, “their future depends on it”.
“If you juxtapose our Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Festival, which cost us R500 000, with something like GovTech which had has millions of rands poured into it – where people come and have the same-old, same-old boring conversations, about systems that are probably dinosaurs that are waiting to become extinct.
“The leadership of our industry looks down their noses at kids ‘playing games’. But with Fak’ugesi we’re investing in something more important than GovTech in bringing together the future leaders in innovation in our industry.
“They’re missing a very important point: the future of the main ICT companies in South Africa lies much more in the stuff that happened at our festival and in similar things than in GovTech or such other top-heavy events.”
Prof Dwolatzky says the recent festival saw young people become meaningfully engaged, rather like the founders of the PC revolution must have engaged back in the 1970s – and mainstream business at that time was equally dismissive of their efforts.
“The next wave of innovation is how to bring content, hardware and software together to do innovative things,” he says. “And the people driving it are these kinds of people – the young game designers, the artists, the lunatics that make these things and play with them.”
The festival, hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand, aimed to boost digital creativity in Braamfontein and the greater Johannesburg area with an exciting range of festivals, conferences, workshops, and hackathons and parties.
It is hoped that it will become an annual event, and Prof Dwolatzky is encouraged by the success it achieved this year.
“I couldn’t believe what happened here. It was completely beyond my experience about what that creativity and innovation is about. The festival once again indicated how enthusiastic, comfortable, totally engaged and playful digital natives and the youth are about digital technology.
“Burt it’s lost in the local ICT environment, where people are more concerned about shipping boxes and selling yesterday’s technology.”