I had the pleasure of serving as a mentor to some participants in the recently held 2030 NDP Hackathon organised by the State Information Technology Agency. The creativity of participants further showed that we do not lack ideas to solve problems in this country, but opportunities to do so. It also reminded me of my biggest bugbear, of government and many large companies failing to take advantage of technology to not only improve their offerings, but deliver services.

I do, however, understand the reluctance by government and some private companies in automating functions traditionally performed by people. In my professional career spanning more than two decades, I have seen how IT functions in many organisations I had been exposed to, struggling to deliver on promises made to business. Common among those problems were budget and timelines overruns. IT leaders responsible for jointly directing those initiatives with business leaders would often cite unforeseen circumstances as one of many reasons for failure to deliver.

I am thus not surprised seeing many organisations reluctant or failing to introduce more technology in automating some functions and digitising their environment. The increasing notoriety of IT functions in overpromising and underdelivering is, but one of the reasons we still see government departments and other companies still relying on solutions causing significant inconvenience to consumers and beneficiaries of their services. By Nimroth Gwetsa, 30 November 2018. Continue reading →