Leadership Insights Blog by Peter Alkema

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, 70% of companies were on some sort of digital transformation journey. During lockdowns around the world, a billion people have surged onto digital platforms to work from home. As a result, the world’s digital transformation has accelerated by 3-5 years and digital is no longer a differentiator, it’s …

Coronavirus and the Zoom Boom Read More »

I have finished my PhD … These are five wonderful words! Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, there will be no ceremonial graduations at Wits University this year, but it was a significant milestone to receive the letter. I have been studying Agile software development teams in large organisations for the past 4 years using a research …

A Sentiment Scale for Agile Teams Read More »

According to last night’s Vent-Con 2020 conference, about 10,000 people worldwide are trying to build ventilators to help solve the anticipated shortage due to COVID19. Highly qualified speakers from various countries shared a panel to showcase their projects, discuss design considerations and help get teams from “workbench to deployment”. I was interested in all these …

Ventilator Makers: The Plan C Team Read More »

Everyone writes, but we don’t always write effectively and with our readers in mind. This course is aimed at postgraduate students in any field and includes principles and practices of writing well in an academic context (click here to enrol). Whether you are writing articles, reports or emails, the principles in this course are widely …

Academic writing for meaning and clarity: An online course from WitsX Read More »

From hedge fund manager to Russian fugitive; Bill Browder and his international quest for justice. Bill Browder made Billions of dollars for his clients; his lawyer was tortured and killed in a Russian jail and the world’s human rights movement applauds him for the Magnitsky Act – a tour de force of human rights legislation. Most of this book you …

[Book Review] “Red Notice” by Bill Browder Read More »

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang believes all Americans should be given $1000 per month from the government, this is his Universal Basic Income proposal which he hopes will help him win the White House next year. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and other leading tech thinkers support similar proposals and Yang says UBI will help avoid a …

[Book Review] The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang Read More »

FNB Business Banking serves nearly a million clients; these businesses are the lifeblood of communities and depend on our range of financial solutions. In addition to great products, our service sets us apart in the industry and is one of the reasons we have been voted Best Business Bank 5 years running. Whether a small …

FNB and Entelect: Skills Partnership for Business Value Read More »

Africa’s first hosting of the largest telecomms conference in the world was an important opportunity for the industry to showcase South Africa to the 91 attending countries. Not just Durban’s beautiful foreshore and local cuisine but the innovation of a sector that Nelson Mandela urged in 1995 to work towards “information riches” for all countries. …

ITU 2018: African connectivity for local solutions Read More »

In welcoming 91 countries to Durban, Ramaphosa has stressed the importance of bridging the digital divide to create an inclusive society. This builds on the theme of Nelson Mandela’s speech at Africa’s first ITU in Geneva during 1995 when he said that telecommunications can help developing countries become “information rich”. Ramaphosa also hopes that the …

“This is how we do things in South Africa” – President Cyril Ramaphosa opens ITU World 2018 Read More »

11000 people packed into the Sandton Convention Centre for Africa’s largest annual gathering of business leaders, professionals and entrepreneurs. Featuring over 250 talks and exhibitions at this year’s event it is a market place of ideas covering venture capital, education, digital, insurtech, AI, banking and much more. During the day I presented a talk on …

Leaderex 2018: Agility, the future of banking and SME support Read More »

The views of Table Mountain from the top floor of our Portside building in Cape Town are outstanding. Even more so when the British Prime Minister stood in front of them recently to open the SA-UK business forum. An historical, first ever visit to Africa for Theresa May she brought a high profile delegation of …

FNB Portside hosts SA-UK Forum Read More »

ITWeb’s “Meeting of the Minds” Artificial Intelligence conference took place in Johannesburg recently. Keynote speaker and professor of ethics Dr Aimee van Wynsberghe called for future-proofing AI with responsible design. Named one of Netherland’s top 400 influential women she is driving ethical-robotics thinking through her research and foundation work. She cited examples of human fatalities …

AI 2018: Lessons for humans, selfies with robots Read More »