Africa’s digital revolution- the promises and challenges

The consistently spreading network of CCTVs, networks, sensors, automation, and artificial intelligence across the African continent is driving the industrial revolution to its advanced destination. Whether it is the industrial domain or the daily use products, Africa is striding towards its industry 4.0 culture that encompasses the digital transformation across domains, smart connectivity with automation, and data analytics that drive this evolution. 

This technological advancement in Africa is focused on increasing profitability by working at the core of manufacturing industries. It is also offering a holistic approach to African industries by integrating machines, data, and humans. 

Some African countries have been leveraging a business transformation framework and digitalizing it using industrial 4.0 solutions as part of the futuristic step that orchestrates digital growth and accelerates further to reap multiple benefits for the people of Africa. The continent is further allowing for transparency in every vertical and is forming an optimal control over the resources to enhance efficiency across the operational processes through automation. 

While this digital transformation is overwhelming for some industries across Africa, most countries are devising a strategy, and adhering to it diligently can make this change more streamlined and effective. 

As the global pandemic brings challenges to the African nations, causing conflict in the development of the industrial revolution, there have been many attempts to overcome these challenges through the inclusion of technological aspects, such as internet penetration and technological diffusion.

The incessant spread of the internet has been revolutionized in Africa and heralded as the key contributor of advancement, prosperity, and growth, as the continent comes of age in the technological world. While the internet is helping citizens to make robust improvements in their daily lives, it is also assisting the agricultural sector to find new and innovative ways to make their harvest more sustainable and the operations more productive. 

Moreover, with the advent of Covid-19 and most companies and schools reduced to work from home and online classes, internet penetration went deep to assist in the continuous work operations as well as consistent classes to keep the continent aligned with the world. 

Some Africans have even taken advantage of the internet penetration to bring their lives dream of becoming an entrepreneur, whilst making a substantial difference in the lives of other people. This evolution is not just aiding in the economy of the continent but also generating employment across Africa. 

However, the increasing digitization has come with its vulnerabilities, especially during the period of a global pandemic. Cybercriminals are constantly creating a bait for trap using thousands of phishing websites, links, emails to extract sensitive information. With complex cybercrimes tangling the network ecosystem, it has become expensive for an organization that has not maintained cybersecurity its priority. To comply with government laws, enterprises have to shell out huge amounts for compliance readiness. Failing to do this will land them in legal problems and monetary loss.

The unrelenting pace at which cybersecurity has taken shape offering resources to battle complex cybersecurity breaches is often hampered by the new and sophisticated cyber-criminal activities. These cybersecurity threats incapacitate the existing measures taken by IT security and push them into exploring its unidentified facets. As time-consuming and monetary challenging as it is to counter these breaches and espionage, manifold attacks are deployed every year by cyber-criminals to the core of the organization.

The nature of the cybersecurity industry is still in the process of catching up to the ever-growing complexities in sensitive and confidential data leakage. This has seen a spike in 2020 with the world coming to its knees under the COVID-19 Pandemic, with more than ever cybersecurity breaches finding the vulnerabilities in the most cutting-edge systems.