Tertiary education has a higher onus to adopt digital technology than most other verticals. We can motivate digital transformation for efficiency or competitiveness, the two baselines every business strives towards. But academic institutions need to move the bar even higher, aiming to educate current and future generations to embrace and realise the digital future. That is a lot of pressure, but Dr Stanley Mpofu, joint winner of the IITPSA’s Visionary CIO award, takes it in his stride. In some ways, he says, the two worlds are not that different.

“To me, being a CIO in the education space or corporate, it’s neither here nor there, because the responsibilities are the same.”