Leadership Insights Blog by Peter Alkema

This year’s ITWeb & Brainstorm CIO Banquet featured the release of the 2017 CIO survey results at a prestigious gathering of top leaders in South Africa’s IT industry. I was privileged to present a keynote message in which I covered the role of business, government and education in the sector. I also touched on cyber-security, the importance of …

CIO Banquet 2017: Keynote Address Part 2 – Education Read More »

This year’s CIO survey results were released at a prestigious gathering of top leaders in South Africa’s IT industry. I was privileged to present a keynote message at the ITWeb & Brainstorm CIO Banquet in which I covered the role of business, government and education in the sector. I also touched on cyber-security, the importance of a city-level response to …

CIO Banquet 2017: Keynote Address Part 3 – Tech at Scale Read More »

This year’s CIO survey results were released at a prestigious gathering of top leaders in South Africa’s IT industry. I was privileged to present a keynote message at the ITWeb & Brainstorm CIO Banquet in which I covered the role of business, government and education in the sector. I also touched on cyber-security, the importance of a city-level response to disruptive …

CIO Banquet 2017: Keynote Address Part 4 – City Level Response Read More »

Another force that looms large is data security; in the last few weeks we’ve witnessed the biggest data leak in the history of South Africa – personal records of more than 60m South Africans (alive and deceased, adults and children) sitting on an internet facing web server possibly since 2015 – and annoyingly enough discovered …

CIO Banquet 2017: Keynote Address Part 5 – Cyber-Security, The Team Environment Read More »

This year’s CIO survey results were released at a prestigious gathering of top leaders in South Africa’s IT industry. I was privileged to present a keynote message at the ITWeb & Brainstorm CIO Banquet in which I covered the role of business, government and education in the sector. I also touched on cyber-security, the importance of a city-level response to disruptive …

CIO Banquet 2017: Keynote Address Part 6 – Closing; Role of Leadership Read More »

“Don’t run a campaign, create a stage”, this is how Lars Silberbauer built LEGO’s social media presence into the world’s most powerful brand in 2015, according to Forbes. Silberbauer is in South Africa for the BCX Disrupt conference and also spoke at an Entelect networking session about how the company re-invented itself from a traditional …

LEGO – The toy story of an $8 Billion brand Read More »

FNB’s digital ‘platform revolution’ powers business growth and competitive advantage to win at Fintech Africa As a finalist in the Most Innovative African Bank competition, FNB presented some new products and platforms at the recent Finance Indaba held at the Sandton Convention Centre. We talked through how we’ve delivered and scaled these innovations to solve …

FNB wins ‘Most Innovative African Bank’ 2nd year running Read More »

Durban is one of the leading cities of South Africa and was a host of the Soccer World Cup in 2010. The Ethekwini Municipality has recognised the importance of bringing together business, government and the community to help drive the city’s aspirations forward. One of these goals is that Durban becomes South Africa’s next Silicon …

FNB Business and City of Durban – Innovation festival drives smart city ambitions; #thisiswhywehelp Read More »

“I was furious, ripped out of my state of deep concentration at a key moment in the game”. This is how Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov described his response when computer chess program Deep Blue crashed and had to be restarted during game four of their first encounter in 1996. This game was also the first …

[Book Review] Deep Thinking by Garry Kasparov; Humans 1 – Computers 1 Read More »

The annual conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists is an opportunity for academics and practitioners to present the latest research in their fields. Hosted this year by Central University of Technology and University of the Free State the humanitarian theme of the 23rd event was intended to stimulate debate …

SAICSIT 2017: “Computing for humanity in today’s world” Read More »

The annual FNB Business Innovation Awards recognises small to medium sized businesses that leverage innovation to create jobs and build scalable businesses in any industry. At the June 2015 awards, one of the finalists, SPARK Schools achieved a special recognition and a promise from FNB Business to help its ongoing mission of providing high value low …

Wethinkcode, SPARK Schools and FNB; a story of opportunity and talent Read More »

The inaugural South African conference of Singularity University was held recently at Kyalami under the theme #futureproofAfrica and covered topics such as robotics, AI, crowd sourcing, fintech, space and medtech. In the closing session, conference organiser Bohdanna Kesala asked delegates “Now What?” and after 2 days of intense exponential thinking this was probably the most …

SingularityU South Africa Summit 2017: Future proofing Africa the exponential way Read More »