As the volume of data collected by businesses across Africa skyrockets, turning all this information into actionable insights becomes increasingly critical. Big data has the power to underpin new waves of growth and innovation and bring Africa into the data economy.

If Africa gets big data right, the benefits will be far-reaching, and will include job creation, business growth, trade and innovation. Unfortunately, several hurdles need to be overcome to enable Africa to take advantage of this immense opportunity, including a lack of infrastructure, connectivity and skills.

The only way to address these is via African solutions and in-continent expertise.

With this in mind, Africa Data Centres, in conjunction with media partner TechCentral, recently held a round table discussion themed “Unlocking the value of big data in Africa”, during which industry leaders unpacked how to help Africa reap the benefits of today’s digital economy.

The turnout was excellent and featured an interesting mix of people, all of whom were eager to share and learn. Some organisations present had young strategies, while others had mature data strategies, and were already successfully extracting data insights from large volumes of data within their organisations.

The future of work

Many who were present were involved in the tertiary education sector, and agreed that education is facing several challenges. One was extracting data that is useful, and another was the time it is taking curricula to advance to the point where they incorporate the rapid change needed to prepare students for the evolution of work.

One attendee highlighted that entities in the education space need to accept that students might not need, or even have reasonable use for, a PhD in the future but instead, might need skills to help them advance in areas like data, AI and ML.

It also emerged that these institutions are encouraging private industry to participate in designing the required curricula to support the growth and change needed to prepare Africa’s youth for the future of work they will inevitably face.

A dire lack of skills

The conversation inevitably turned to the skills deficit, coupled with the attrition of skills to organisations and other countries that can lure skills away by offering higher salaries than their African counterparts, once our businesses have invested heavily in bringing these skills up to a desirable level. This topic sparked some debate as to how to deal with this – and it was suggested that Africa needs to focus less on retention and more on development, which could help retention if properly executed.

One of the financial institutions present was passionate about the topic and the role of big business in developing youth and the overall capabilities of the workforce, while understanding that not all would stay.

All agreed that there is a clear need for organisations to share this outlook for the future benefit of our country and continent, and the conversation turned to how data can help Africa achieve this.

Western models

Some said Africa is too quick to apply data models and analyses designed for the Western world that don’t translate well to this continent, which could see some of the most valuable areas of growth, that need our focus, being disregarded.

One attendee raised the point that we need to have a clear African focus on our data and that the skills of assessing, collaborating and providing insights from this data need to be localised. This, they said, is because too often we worry about how the West is doing things, when they are solving problems that are very different from Africa’s.

Africa Data Centres shared some insights into how they can connect these data sets between organisations and bring organisations closer to the computing power they need to effectively process the data and draw the insights that they require.

With their network of companies, ISPs and hyper-clouds; hosting collocated privatised clouds for businesses could essentially put those businesses “on net” with each other and the kinds of businesses that can help them get the very best out of their data.

Collaboration is key

Another key thread in the conversation was that of collaboration and the question of which companies had got to the point of monetising data they had which could be shared with other organisations as insights. A large gym group used the example of purchasing load shedding data to assist in providing insights around the use of their clubs at times when there was no power; and to understand what they needed to have in place to cater to their clients’ needs.

Many companies compared notes on what data should be kept because there is a significant cost associated with keeping data that is no longer of use. It emerged that data hoarding has become an issue in many organisations, and as such, data classification and valuing has become a critical exercise.

This topic then turned briefly to security as a comment was made that the more data a company keeps, the more data it has at risk. One business shared how in recent years, they were hit with a massive ransomware attack that crippled their business and meant it all but ground to a halt. They had to switch to running their business with pen and paper and try to build all their data sets from scratch. This gave them a very different view of what was needed and critical, and what should be on premises, vs the cloud.

Big data success stories

The session closed with a few big data success stories at the request of one of the attendees. A transport entity shared a really great example of the data it is collecting and monitoring around the habits of their drivers, as well as their posture and facial expressions. This has seen them evolve this data into a tool that can detect fatigue in a driver and can warn them of imminent drowsiness. The business believes it has prevented countless possible accidents.

About Africa Data Centres
Africa Data Centres is Africa’s largest network of interconnected, carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre facilities. Bringing international experts to the pan-African market, we are your trusted partner for rapid and secure data centre services and interconnections across the African continent. Strategically located, our world-class facilities provide a home for all your business-critical data. Proudly African, we are dedicated to being the heart that beats your business. For more information, please visit www.africadatacentres.com, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.