Klaus Schwab, executive chair of the World Economic Forum, is largely seen as the father of the term ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, which he first introduced to assembled world leaders in Davos in 2016. While there was limited awareness locally, when President Cyril Ramaphosa first uttered those three words in 2019, it opened the floodgates in SA. The term 4IR fast became a nebulous vagary used by many to sound progressive and enlightened, but to the uninformed, it often meant little more than accessing something on a smartphone.

Thankfully, there’s now some meat to add to the bones. Last year, the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution had its recommendations accepted by Cabinet and the report released to the public in October. At over 220 pages, it offers a depth of recommendations on how to move the country forward and doesn’t pull its punches in speaking truth to power about what needs to change. Its work completed, the commission, chaired by the president, has now disbanded. Its former deputy chair, Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, vice chancellor and principal at UJ, admits there’s currently a level of technological illiteracy among many local politicians, but feels from the requests that he’s had for meetings with political parties and their members that there is political will in taking the journey.