• South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has put together a team of experts to lead the council’s cluster of enterprises in their digital transformation journeys.
• The team will be chaired by Vodacom veteran Mamello Selamolela who has been at the telco for six years in executive roles.
• A team of 12 industry experts are being put together to ensure that digital transformation is achieved for the benefit of South African society.

Digitalisation, or digital transformation continues to be an important topic for the South African government.

The transformation of processes and tasks from paper-based roots or even legacy IT to modern digital solutions stands to unlock faster service delivery, more inclusive governance, and most importantly the opportunity to save funds through increased efficiency.

On Tuesday, South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) announced that it had appointed an industry advisory panel of experts to give public enterprises advice on how best to implement their digital transformation policies and journeys.

“This signifies the organisation’s efforts to align with industry-specific priorities in the quest to achieve digitalisation for greater societal and industrial impact,” the CSIR said, as per SA News.

“Utilising its robust science, engineering and technology capabilities, the organisation seeks to establish a balance between scientific and industrial development,” it added.

Mamello Selamolela has been appointed as chairperson to lead the panel of 12 members. Selamolela is a veteran of the tech industry and currently serves as a managing executive at Vodacom overseeing group strategy. Prior to her time at Vodacom, she served as general manager at MTN.

She leads a team that, according to CSIR, brings a wealth of experience and insight into market operations, including Bronwyn Williams, Nomso Kana, Dawood Patel, Paul Mashegoane, Envir Fraser, Wakaba, Dr Ntsibane Ntlatlapa and Anne Gabathuse.

“The newly established industry advisory panel not only strengthens the CSIR’s commitment to achieving strategic objectives but also underscores its dedication towards fostering industrial development and digital transformation within government, public institutions and the industry at large,” explained Dr Sandole Malinga, group executive for CSIR Smart Society.

CSIR says that the members of the panel believed that digitalisation should be of benefit for South Africa and that efforts towards it should be in line with important pillars of society, with a keen eye on societal needs.

To this end, the panel will provide advice on strategic issues to the enterprises and institutions that belong to CSIR’s NextGen cluster, especially in the digitalisation domain and efforts in digital transformation.

The council, part of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, is one of the country’s leading scientific and research organisations. Last year Hypertext interviewed Carel de Jager, Distributed Ledger Technology Research Group Leader at CSIR about the council’s efforts to bring blockchain technology towards public enterprises in the country, as well as the banking sector for increased personal security.

[Image – Photo by Jessica Lewis on Unsplash]