ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is swiftly becoming inevitable in almost every part of business.
The insights by Dr Lance Mabondiani, will definitely and incisively provoke every serious leader, especially in the global south.
This is the last part of the interview I (JN) had with Dr Mambondiani (LM).
JN: How then do we, as African leaders, not just be consumers of these technologies or users of these technologies, but part of the creation?
LM: So we need to be coders, and you’re absolutely right.
Sadly, we have a lot more people who consume products than those who create them.
Keep Reading
- Time running out for SA-based Zimbos
- Sally Mugabe renal unit disappears
- Epworth eyes town status
- Commodity price boom buoys GB
I think ideation is absolutely key, it’s absolutely important.
We need to teach our children how to code, and not just play games, video games.
They need to be able to code and understand that they can create the kind of content that can be consumed by others.
Because the greatest advantage of technology is that it has managed to equalise everybody, no matter where you are and no matter where you live.
Our children have the same access to coding as children in the United States.
It’s just the environment that we have that does not foster that kind of learning, where children are learning the importance of building something, coding, and really just being creators of products, of services, and not really just to consume.
JN: I’ve just been following your work, how you’ve evolved through the banking industry. Can you give us one example or two testimonies on how technology helped you to become a bigger and better leader in your country?
LM: When I was CEO at Steward Bank, I liked to say that we are a technology company that happens to have a banking licence, because I believe ultimately that technology is more important than the products and services that you offer.
Why? Because technology allows you to increase your efficiency.
It allows you to reach a lot more people. You have a lot more accessibility to your consumer.
It also allows you to have quicker delivery channels.
So in everything I’ve done within the banking sector, I’ve been aided by technology.
I’ve really just been pushing technology; making sure that we are making products cheaper.
Because the good thing with technology is that it allows you to reduce the cost of providing a service.
If you’re offering a service on a platform, you reduce the cost.
It’s like reading a newspaper online.
The reason why Netflix is cheaper than DStv is that they have eliminated the cost that is associated with infrastructure.
So if you have a shared platform where you are reducing the cost of service, you have the capacity to offer products and services much, much cheaper to customers.
JN: What is that single skill or mindset that you believe tomorrow’s leader needs now? And in addition to that, are our universities, our colleges, ready for this kind of revolution?
LM: Firstly, you know, I heard a statistic which surprised me. Some of the people employed by JPMorgan, one of the leading banks in the US, are actually engineers, and not necessarily bankers.
That tells you a bigger story.
So it means you’re bringing in a guy who does not know figures from a monetary point of view, but he understands engineering, because knowledge can be taught.
You can teach any knowledge.
What you can’t teach is the dexterity of our skills; your capacity to look at where the world is going and the capacity to solve a problem.
So it’s important that people study law. I studied law, by the way.
But you need to understand that we are now living in a world where we are looking at the world through the prism of technology.
And I go back to coding.
I believe that one of the greatest skills that a CEO of a bank should have is coding, or the capacity to understand things like machine learning, AI.
Because everything else, I don’t need to have consumed a textbook of banking for me to do banking.
I employ people who know how to do banking.
That’s what leaders do. Leaders are not necessarily supposed to do, they are supposed to lead.
I think we make mistakes sometimes by thinking that knowledge is power. Knowledge is not power.
The application of knowledge is power.
You can have all the knowledge that you want, but if you have no capacity to apply it, then it’s useless.
So going back to the question that you asked, I think our universities really need to make sure that they are reshaping their mindset on what they are teaching children today, and not necessarily things that are impractical or things that might not be important as life skills.
I do not need my children to know the anatomy of an ant or a grasshopper, but that’s what we teach our children.
What am I going to do with that?
I would rather they learn how to code. I want them to know where the world is going.
I want them to learn about AI.
I want them to know the practicality of how to build an airplane, not to ride one.
I want them to have the capacity to learn how to build things.
That’s what we should be focusing on.
Like the question that you asked earlier, how to be creators, to be builders, and not necessarily to be consumers, that means we have to be agile.
We have to be agile in our thought process.
Really, I think we need to teach our children not to compete at consuming.
You know how it is when all of us are competing on who is wearing the latest Gucci.
Be the creator of Gucci.
We want to be competitors in how fast we are consuming the latest vehicle.
How about we are the ones who are creating the vehicle?
I think that’s the mentality shift that I believe our schools have to teach.