African Perspectives

The Brics Future Skills Challenge gave an opportunity for women to showcase their skills in welding. For women looking for a new career or considering switching fields, welding is an especially promising industry. When it comes to “non-traditional” occupations for women, welding can be one of the most vital, in-demand, and rewarding of the skilled trades. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

The entrepreneurs main objective is to get their business off the ground and run operations. Do they focus on the important issue of insurance on their lives as entrepreneurs, where if things would go bad on their lives, what cover is there? We get into that conversation to educate entrepreneurs and partners. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

The BRICS Skills Challenge will be focused on smart factories with Industry 4.0 as a key theme through both the EXPO and the challenge. The expo will have a more detailed focus showcasing the " 4th Industrial revolution and future skills". It will, however, be a very focused event with specific stands allocated to each of the BRICS countries. There will also be meeting areas to encourage Business to Business conversations. Three main areas will be looked at during the challenge: first will be digital which will include Cyber Security, Internet of Things, Data Analytics and High-Performance Computing. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

Covering the BRICS future skill challenge 2018, Gavin chats to Prof. Riaan Stopforth and Damian Mooney about the current in Drone Technology across South Africa and skills development for the future of our economy. Prof Riaan Stopforth & Damian Mooney #BricsFutureSkillsChallange In its preamble, the BRICS acknowledge the benefits in the opportunities in ICTs - BRICS in Africa summit notes the objectives to promote “Collaboration for Inclusive Growth and Shared Prosperity in the 4th Industrial Revolution. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

Lebo Lestoalo chairperson of MERSETA shares the purpose of having the Brics Futures Skills Challenge in South Africa. In 2018, Chairmanship of BRICS moves to South Africa, and with South Africa hosting the Government summit and the BRICS Business Council Meetings the South African Skills Development Working Group (SDWG) has agreed to host the second BRICS Skills Challenge at Gallagher estate in Gauteng, During October 2018. During the challenge, participants are given specific tasks and deadlines in which to complete them. Participants are judged by panels of specialists from participating countries. The objectives of the Skills Development Working Group are: · increase bilateral and multilateral cooperation in skills development for Industry 4.0 and other future skills that will facilitate economic growth, · collaborate for innovation and development of cost-effective learning tools and · development of a standard qualification framework and new curricula in emerging technologies, to facilitate skills develo

The Constitutional Court of South Africa handed down the Marijuana ruling that has been termed historical on the 18th of September 2018. Gavin Smith and Gavin Stansfield chat about some of the implications to watch out for in the workplace. The judgment deal with the constitutionality of the prohibition and criminalization of the use of cannabis by adult persons in their private dwellings. The Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act 140 of 1992 (Drugs Act) read together with the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act 101 of 1965 (Medicines Act), prohibits and criminalizes the use, possession, purchase, and cultivation of cannabis by any individual in South Africa. The relevant provisions of the legislation are: 1. Drug Act • Section 4(b) and 5(b) • Part III of Schedule 2 2. Medicines Act • Section 22A(9)(a)(i) • Schedule 7 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

The Constitutional Court of South Africa handed down the Marijuana ruling that has been termed historical on the 18th of September 2018. Gavin Smith and Gavin Stansfield chat about some of the implications to watch out for in the workplace. The judgment deal with the constitutionality of the prohibition and criminalization of the use of cannabis by adult persons in their private dwellings. The Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act 140 of 1992 (Drugs Act) read together with the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act 101 of 1965 (Medicines Act), prohibits and criminalizes the use, possession, purchase, and cultivation of cannabis by any individual in South Africa. The relevant provisions of the legislation are: 1. Drug Act • Section 4(b) and 5(b) • Part III of Schedule 2 2. Medicines Act • Section 22A(9)(a)(i) • Schedule 7 The Cannabis judgment undoubtedly has implications for South African society. Since the initial challenges launched by Prince (as far back as 2002 and 1998), there are now 33 countries (includ

Today Africa, we draw your attention to the beautiful country of Cote d’Ivoire and what is happening in that countries art scene. But first a bit of context. For those of you who don’t know - Cote d’Ivoire attained independence from the French on the 7th of August 1960. Her first president was Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who ruled the country until 1993. After Felix Houphouet-Boigny ended, Cote d’Ivoire has experienced a coup d’etat, in 1999, and two religious - grounded civil wars. The first two took place between 2002 and 2007 and the second during 2010 – 2011. Cote d’Ivoire has an income per capita (US$1014.4). She has the largest economy on the West African Economic and Monetary Union constituting 40% of the monetary union’s total GDP. She is the largest exporter of cocoa beans averaging US$2, 53 billion in earnings per year. Cote d’Ivoire also has 100,000 rubber farmers who earned an average of US$105 million per year. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

The organisations that are going to prosper and survive in this age of information technology are those who embrace it and are not afraid to change in order to adapt it into their processes. Schneider Electric has developed a technology called EcoStuxure for this very reason. Quinton McCutcheon, Head of EcoStuxure joins us to discuss this. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

Dr. Chaesub Lee joins Adetunji Omotola on the sideline of the ITU conference 2018 in the city of Durban South Africa. They discuss the different roles of telecommunication in the global development. Chaesub Lee is the Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, following his election at the 2014 Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, Republic of Korea. He took office on 1st January 2015. Dr. Lee has been involved in the telecommunication and ICT standardization field for 30 years, specializing in areas such as integrated services digital networks (ISDN), global information infrastructure (GII), Internet protocol, next-generation networks (NGN), Internet protocol television (IPTV) and cloud computing. He started his professional life in 1986 as a researcher at Korea Telecom. After 17 years he took up a role at the country's Electronic and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), where he stayed for the next eight years. Most recently he worked at the Korea Advanced --- Support this pod

Dr. Chaesub Lee joins Adetunji Omotola on the sideline of the ITU conference 2018 in the city of Durban South Africa. They discuss the different roles of telecommunication in the global development. Chaesub Lee is the Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, following his election at the 2014 Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, Republic of Korea. He took office on 1st January 2015. Dr. Lee has been involved in the telecommunication and ICT standardization field for 30 years, specializing in areas such as integrated services digital networks (ISDN), global information infrastructure (GII), Internet protocol, next-generation networks (NGN), Internet protocol television (IPTV) and cloud computing. He started his professional life in 1986 as a researcher at Korea Telecom. After 17 years he took up a role at the country's Electronic and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), where he stayed for the next eight years. Most recently he worked at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and

Bret Rogers and Gavin discuss ill-fitting executive in an organization and how do you handle a situation like this. Having been “raised” in companies with healthy talent planning processes, one can easily take for granted the benefits of having a bench of strong internal candidates and few talent crises. We make the case for onboarding or a situation whereby you have a consultant working with the internal team just on a particular project, how do you make sure that you are still able to maintain a healthy organizational culture. Bret highlights what must be avoided and major red lights that could serve as a signal for trouble. Injecting external talent, nevertheless, is an important aspect in maintaining a healthy and vibrant organization. However, the same processes that help prevent a poor internal selection are not as effective in the case of that occasional external hire. An external hire, unless handled by an experienced professional, is exposed to fewer quality controls to ensure organizational fit. -

Michelle Baron-Williamson, CEO of Managed Integrity Evaluation, joins us to discuss what to do if you think your criminal record is hindering you professionally. Securing a job in South Africa today is tough for many. Latest figures from Stats SA indicate that unemployment has increased to 27.2% for the second quarter of the year (from 26.7%) – where hiring organizations are more cautious than optimistic about growth in the economy, their markets, and their businesses. Hiring someone with a criminal record is often just not an option. According to Michelle Baron-Williamson, CEO of Managed Integrity Evaluation (MIE), “In times of instability and evolving change, such as we are experiencing now, businesses particularly tend to become more risk adverse to their gainful investment, including in their people, and take a more inspective and discretionary approach to hire. As a result, we are seeing increasing investment into comprehensive background screening solutions to assist businesses in mitigating against

Quentyn Taylor chats to us about how to reduce the current digital skills' gap in Africa. Plugging the gap – how businesses can resolve Europe’s digital skills shortage Digital transformation is revolutionizing the European workplace, with its ability to streamline processes, reduce expenditure and enhance the service offering. Rapidly advancing digital technologies are already being used in hundreds of sectors, including farming, healthcare, transport, education, retail, home automation and logistics. The demand for information and communications technology specialists is growing fast – so much so that according to the European Commission, 9 out of 10 jobs in the future will require digital skills. At the same time though, 169 million Europeans between 16 and 74 years – 44% – do not have basic digital skills. This means that the benefits that digitization can drive are quite literally under threat as Europe is failing to produce enough IT graduates. What’s worse is that as the pace of technological developm

The South Africa Portugues Chamber of commerce celebrated its 5th year anniversary and also held its annual Business Excellence Awards (with Standard Bank as the headline sponsor). Africa Business Radio is delighted to continue our partnership with SAPCC in covering this special event. The SAPCC Standard Bank Business Excellence Awards are held annually to celebrate the Luso-South African business community’s contribution to the economic vitality and social fabric of South Africa. The Awards recognize excellence in business, personal achievements, innovative practices and outstanding contributions to the community. The format of the Awards has changed this year. The Chamber has increased the award categories from 3 to 8. The categories are 1. Professional of the Year, 2. Small Business of the Year, 3. Large Business of the Year, 4. Franchisor of the Year, 5. Business Person of the Year, 6. Business Innovation Award,7. Entrepreneur of the Year and 8. Mandela Tribute Award. --- Support this podcast: https:/

The South Africa Portugues Chamber of commerce celebrated its 5th year anniversary and also held its annual Business Excellence Awards (with Standard Bank as the headline sponsor). Africa Business Radio is delighted to continue our partnership with SAPCC in covering this special event. The SAPCC Standard Bank Business Excellence Awards are held annually to celebrate the Luso-South African business community’s contribution to the economic vitality and social fabric of South Africa. The Awards recognize excellence in business, personal achievements, innovative practices and outstanding contributions to the community. The format of the Awards has changed this year. The Chamber has increased the award categories from 3 to 8. The categories are 1. Professional of the Year, 2. Small Business of the Year, 3. Large Business of the Year, 4. Franchisor of the Year, 5. Business Person of the Year, 6. Business Innovation Award,7. Entrepreneur of the Year and 8. Mandela Tribute Award. --- Support this podcast: https:/

Rui is a lawyer and Tony is a psychologist, together they call themselves 'The Law of Psychology'. Rui and Tony chat to us about some of the work that SAPCC has been doing over the past 5 years. The South Africa Portugues Chamber of commerce celebrated its 5th year anniversary and also held its annual Business Excellence Awards (with Standard Bank as the headline sponsor). Africa Business Radio is delighted to continue our partnership with SAPCC in covering this special event. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

The South Africa Portugues Chamber of commerce celebrated its 5th year anniversary and also held its annual Business Excellence Awards (with Standard Bank as the headline sponsor). Africa Business Radio is delighted to continue our partnership with SAPCC in covering this special event. Thokozani and Rui of GrowthMap, both members of the chamber join us to share their experiences of the chamber. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/africanperspective/support

Smart Ports generally has to do with inter-connectedness of the different components of a port, this can be simply referred to as internet of things, very much different from a smart port but more about inter-connectedness. Major ports like the Lagos Port Complex, the Tin Can Island Port, Calabar Port, Port Harcourt, Delta Port and Onne Port experience tremendous volumes of sea and road traffic. Trucks and ships converge to carry exports out of the country (mostly commodities like oil) and imports into the country. Nigeria imports a very high proportion of its consumer goods. Ships descend on the major ports at a relentless pace, serving the almost 200 million people in Nigeria, and much greater numbers in the surrounding regions.” The volumes seen in Nigerian ports vastly outweighs what we see on even the busiest day in Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa. At Lagos’ ports, it’s not uncommon for trucks to queue for two to three weeks, waiting to get into the port. With poor road networks connecting the port,

Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) is a continental coalition of Civil Society Organizations whose goal is to mobilize and empower African civil society to ensure the realization of environmental and climate justice for all people in Africa. We are the largest alliance of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) with over 1000 members in over 45 countries in Africa, embodying one African voice on climate and environmental justice. The formation of ACCER (Africa Climate Change Environmental Reporting) is to allow Africans to report on environmental issues and the theme this year is “changing the African narrative on climate change”. This call is to all journalist who is passionate about the report on the such as a table. The application link is accerawards@pacja.org PACJA has a vision of a global environment free from the threat of climate change with sustainable development, equity and justice for all; also to develop and promote pro-poor development and equity-based positions relevant for Africa in the I