The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) says its Digital Factory initiative is gaining ground, as it prepares to rollout innovations to address a number of important areas across SA’s municipalities.
Digital Factory is an umbrella term that encompasses SALGA’s many digital transformation initiatives, which the organisation has developed, co-developed and/or co-provided for local government.
The initiatives are underpinned by cloud-based technology, to address critical use-case areas, internally or externally, as part of its strategy to deliver innovative services to SA’s citizens.
SALGA is the constitutionally mandated organisation responsible for local government oversight.
Its cloud strategy is among the issues SALGA chief digital officer Kutlwano Chaba will unpack, as part of a panel discussion titled: “Accelerating cloud adoption in the public sector” at the ITWeb Cloud Tech Executive Breakfast 2023, taking place tomorrow in Sandton.
The discussion will focus on the crucial role of cloud computing in enabling a conducive environment for the development and implementation of efficient and innovative solutions for service delivery in the public sector.
Many public sector organisations are looking to reap the benefits of lower costs, greater agility and scalability that are associated with the cloud.
According to Chaba, developing cloud-based agile innovations is the heartbeat of improving municipal services.
“A lot is spoken about cloud adoption – but what we need is a focus on use-case enablement,” explains Chaba.
“SALGA has developed a digital strategic programme and framework for local government to leverage the digital transformation promise. This includes the required structures, people competencies and strategies that can (or should) be put in place. I will be sharing how a focus on use-cases can accelerate cloud adoption and benefit realisations.”
Initiatives that form part of SALGA’s Digital Factory include a virtual reality/augmented reality water solution developed to simulate water facilities; a municipal water and sanitation technology and innovation barometer; and an internal integrated development planning management solution focused on strategy, planning, risk management and performance/monitoring/evaluation for municipalities.
The organisation has also developed SALGA PULSE, a data-as-a-service and data solutions platform focused on using the organisation’s internal capacity to build data analytic solutions for local government.
According to Chaba, some of these solutions are in pilot phase and will be deployed nationally in due course.
As part of his discussion, Chaba will emphasise cloud programmes “beyond migration” and how public-private sector collaborations ensure delivery of exceptional and secure cloud services that can be useful to tech adopters.
“Our digital framework is anchored on a cloud-first approach. From a security point of view, we have been able to seamlessly incorporate native security stacks available in the cloud platforms being used. Cloud allowed us to rapidly scale-up and accelerate our programme.”
The panel will also unpack SA’s IT skills dearth and possible solutions.
“Interestingly enough, general cloud administration skills are quite accessible and relatively easy to acquire. What we do need are skills in the financial and resource optimisation of cloud environments.
“The cyber security space brings with it a different dynamic, as the goalpost is always shifting. We need various skills from an application, platform and infrastructure level – let alone at a data level,” he concludes.
Share