Leadership Insights Blog by Peter Alkema

A long term commitment to Africa by IBM Chairlady and CEO Ginni Rometty has led to the creation of a 900 square metre, world class research centre in the Tshimolong Precinct in Braamfontein. Scientists in the new facility will focus on digital urban research, universe exploration and data driven healthcare. Medical treatment across the continent will benefit …

IBM launches R700m Research Lab in Johannesburg Read More »

At the recent Digital Disruptors Conference at GIBS Business School, South African industry leaders spoke about disruptive approaches to their business models. Google South Africa’s “mobile moment” happened in late 2014 when internet searches from mobile devices exceeded for the first time those performed on desktops. By 2020 there will be 500 million people in Sub Saharan Africa …

Eight Big South African Digital Disruptors Read More »

The disruptive nature of Blockchain and its impact in financial services was recently presented at GIBS by Farzam Ehsani, leader of RMB’s Blockchain Initiative. He also helped establish The Foundery, RMB’s FinTech unit and believes that blockchain technology will become a new and necessary normal in our lives just like the internet. The way we store and exchange …

Blockchain, bitcoin and banking; how does it work and why it will change everything. Read More »

Citizens are the ultimate winners when big business and government work together. Each sector has immense assets that can be combined to create value for all parties. Supply chains, processes and skills across the state and corporate world are often complementary and it usually just takes a willingness to collaborate to find significant opportunities. Networks of relationships already …

The role of IT in Public Private Partnerships Read More »

Cognitive computing is copying humanity with machinery; scary fiction becoming fact or technology solving our greatest problems? The Terminator series of movies grabbed the world’s attention with the scary possibility that a network of armed machines could somehow self organise and destroy us. This destructive tipping point dramatises a worst case scenario in the field of Artificial Intelligence …

IBM’s Watson; the future of personalised technology Read More »

FirstRand has created very successful financial services brands all of which benefit from its powerful owner-manager culture. FNB Business Banking is no exception and reflects on its fourth consecutive year of this achievement with a strong dose of humility. Matter of pride FNB Business Banking prides itself on a strategy of listening first and putting its …

Reflections on a winning franchise; FNB voted Best Business Bank, 2016 Sunday Times Top Brands Read More »

I presented to the MIT850 students at UP about the state of Agile in South African organisations. The slides and video of the lecture are below as well as the overall outline of the presentation; IT Projects Today Sample Survey Results (these questions were provided before the lecture) Evolution of Agile Thinking (the 8 pre-read papers …

University of Pretoria Guest Lecture: Agile in SA Organisations Read More »

The Agile Manifesto provides useful principles for improving software projects; the Codefest demonstrates some of these quite effectively. At the recent Africa DevOps Day hosted by Standard Bank I spoke about our journey in setting up an Agile-supportive culture. I shared seven lessons, three of which correlate strongly with the environment that emerges in the Codefest “play space”; …

FNB Codefest: Agile culture matters, brilliance follows Read More »

A strategic step from SIM card to device; the bank’s affordable smart phone offering extends its already successful mobile strategy Truly mobile banking The first bank in South Africa to run a mobile network now also offers its own branded smart phones to low end consumers for whom “every cent counts”. Easy access to its powerful …

FNB Going for Gold in Telco Banking Race Read More »

This year we added a “Learn” component to Codefest; even ninjas need to upgrade their mastery. Ernst and Young highlights talent as one of five strategic imperatives in their latest report “Leading through innovation; The future of banking in emerging markets”. High quality IT talent is particularly scarce in banking and industry winners will be able to attract …

FNB Codefest: Masterclasses Read More »

FNB recently hosted a trip for 2 hackathon-winning students from Africa’s first peer to peer coding education academy. Stephen Asiedu and Sizwe Mamba come from very different backgrounds but they have two things in common. Firstly; as WeThinkCode students they beat 30,000 other hopefuls to make it through the rigorous assessments and secure a place in the first ever …

WeThinkCode and the Cape Town startup tour Read More »

Technology continues to drive job creation in South Africa.  Eight of the eleven finalists in this year’s FNB Business Innovation Awards make direct use of innovative IT in their products and services. From NicheStreem’s digital streaming platform to Guidepost’s software platform for disease management, software offers the game-changing industry disruption that all of these techpreneurs have …

Techpreneurs are flourishing in SA economy Read More »