Peter du Plooy's parents must be absolutely delighted that their son went into technology.
Although his job as the CIO of petroleum company Engen is hugely demanding, he's finding time to introduce new technologies to the retirement village that his parents recently moved into.
The residents are discovering how to connect with their younger relatives through social media and may soon start shopping online. Du Plooy is proving he deserves the title of IITPSA President's Visionary CIO of the Year by giving older people fresh vision too.
"I recently put my parents into a retirement village and I'm on the exco and have started to see how I can improve the lot of older people," he says. "I do a lot of travelling and it's easy to communicate with your family, but that needs everyone to be on a digital platform. My parents are in their mid-80s and I gave them an iPhone."
He also set up a WiFi router for them, and soon they were using WhatsApp and Facetime. "Then I saw them reading their newspapers on the iPhone, so I bought them iPads," he says.
He's now looking into organising transport to help less independent residents get to the shops, and planning to show them how to shop online.
"It's lovely working with them and seeing people get excited," he says. "There is a lot of gratification in it because you can see how thankful they are and you are improving their lives and that's important. It's a hell of a lot of fun too."
I don't think I'll ever sit back and not ponder about how we can shape the future.
In his official capacity at Engen, Du Plooy is responsible for providing and managing the technology for Engen's manufacturing, marketing and retailing operations across Sub-Saharan Africa. He designs the IT strategy and works with the board and the exco to ensure the IT is aligned to the business needs. The IT Steering Committee meets every few weeks with the CEO and all executive committee members in attendance, so Du Plooy can discuss IT strategy, service delivery, trends in IT and how technology can improve the business. It's a big job, and he has a team of 250 people below him.
The human element
One thing he is passionate about is the people side of IT. He describes himself as a futurist, and understands that technology must be designed for real people.
"When I was an undergraduate 30 years ago, I wanted to work in technology, but I knew the importance of understanding people, because any technology that gets designed gets delivered for the benefit of people," he says. To achieve that, he majored in psychology, industrial psychology and science.
He was ahead of the curve in predicting the swing towards the market of one. "I did my MBA 19 years ago and my thesis was around marketing to the single consumer, and today, that's where we are commercially. So 20 years ago, I had the vision that this is where things would end up with technology, and did all my research on how you should segment the market for the market of one for individual delivery to people based on their individual needs."
His forward thinking is going to help Accelerate Cape Town, the business leadership organisation working towards more inclusive economic growth.
"I just started working with them to see how we can improve our communities and the lives of our citizens. It's around how digitisation is potentially going to disrupt and improve life with things like free WiFi in the cities, which is absolute upliftment. I'm interested in artificial intelligence and robotics and how they are potentially going to change the way human beings interact. Robotics integrated with artificial intelligence will end up really changing the world."
Du Plooy says his strength at Accelerate may be to join the dots and suggest other things that can be introduced. "It's about using bits of information and knowledge and the way you bring things together to improve things," he says.
His job, his efforts to introduce useful technologies to retirees and his involvement with Accelerate Cape Town add up to a great many commitments.
He's never short of time for the things he wants to do, he says. "You will always find time for whatever you're passionate about, which drives and motivates you. I don't think I'll ever sit back and not ponder about how we can shape the future."
This article was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
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