Once, following one of several columns published here on the subject of our national failure to embrace the opportunities of digitalisation I was accused of “flogging a dead horse” by someone who knows a lot more than I do about the subject.
This is perhaps the most dreadful fear of anyone claiming public space to advocate for things meant to improve the quality of human life. That you are wasting time.
The “dead horse” idiom, after all, points to a sense of terminal pointlessness. But, if we are to continue to envisage a viable future for coming generations, the engine that drives our development must both promise to be of a quality exceeding the capabilities of a biologically mortal animal and, more importantly, pronounced to be more alive than dead.
Every now and then, we get a sense that people with decision-making power over our lives are beginning to get the point but eventually let us down. In July 2021, for instance, a Ministry of Digital Transformation was born. It was at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and there were hurried steps to rectify earlier reluctance in the move away from paper and physical files and long lines. Social distance as a stimulus for digital proximity.
The major tasks require multi-pronged attacks on processes, business models, domain management, and cultural/organisation transformation – concepts all now globally resident in tech-speak and expressed as political aspiration.
Yet (and for the umpteenth time right here) I remind people of the fact that at approximately 2.20 p.m. on Thursday September 23, 2021 – in his capacity as minister in the Office of the Prime Minister - Stuart Young announced the possible arrival of “digital vaccination cards” in “four to six weeks.”
There have been explanations by the responsible ministries – health, and digital transformation – about why an initial delay that grew to an indefinite postponement, and eventual abandonment. What has not been explained is the unwitting mamaguy that raised expectations at a time of supreme nervousness regarding a likely return to work, school, business, and play.
Now, don’t get me wrong, “digital vaccination cards” are not among the more spectacular achievements of the digitalisation efforts of any government. Neither is the presence of downloadable forms for the conduct of official business. These are extremely modest developments that hint at business processes only tending in the general direction of digital governance, but possible even with both feet embedded in the past.
Mind you, this is true not only of government but of private actors. Bear in mind the requirements of “business model transformation” and you will realise how far off-base are even the important business sub-sectors of banking and insurance.
It does not require the itemising of anecdotes to prove the general point I am making. Just tell me the significant differences between doing business with a government agency and any of the main private businesses with which you interact on an occasional or regular basis. (Note to reader: Insert personal story here.)
There does not appear to be recognition of the fact that the unfolding global reality credits digitalisation with providing reliable assurance that livelihoods can be protected and maintained.
Almost everywhere else in both the developed and developing world there is emerging research on the socio-cultural peculiarities to be assessed and managed as people experience the required transformations.
It would thus be reasonable to assume that the agencies actively engaged in guiding T&T through the changes are applying rather clinical eyes when it comes to research, and innovative application of available technologies, together with the processes that employ them. Please let me know where I can find evidence of this.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it would be the extent to which all areas of private and public conduct converge at open portals to digital realities. It is an inescapable path. Whether we like it or not (and there are many people in positions of influence and power who do not believe this), the timeless, borderless frontiers of new technologies, platforms, and processes are upon us.
Though the 2022 UNDP Digital Readiness Assessment Report on T&T provides some insights, and will no doubt be cited in the good news bulletins, there is little in it to indicate progress on a psychological predisposition which, for instance, has militated against positive action on things like work-from-home regimes and remote learning. It is not only a matter of infrastructure or even connectivity, important as they are. There are changes that require political, economic, social, and cultural momentum.
In many instances elsewhere, these are horses that have long bolted. We are yet to studiously apply the whip to ours.
