Why smart warehouses still need staff

Why smart warehouses still need staff

In a massive warehouse in Shanghai, dozens of humanoid robots are being trained to do simple, repetitive tasks. Controlled remotely, these robots work around 17 hours a day, folding T-shirts, making sandwiches, and opening and closing a door. The goal is to generate large amounts of data, use it to train machines, and eventually introduce…

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Reimagining TVET Colleges through digital transformation and smart learning infrastructure

Reimagining TVET Colleges through digital transformation and smart learning infrastructure

Sizwe Africa IT Group Hikvision Even Flow Team. This week’s official launch of the Gert Sibande TVET College 4IR Lab and Centre of Specialisation represents a major milestone in advancing the Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) vision for modern, digitally enabled TVET institutions that respond to the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution…

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Africa: AI – ‘African Govts Are Using ‘Smart City’ Systems to Monitor Dissent and Consolidate State Control’

Africa: AI – ‘African Govts Are Using ‘Smart City’ Systems to Monitor Dissent and Consolidate State Control’

CIVICUS discusses the spread of AI-powered surveillance in Africa with Wairagala Wakabi, executive director of the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and co-editor of Smart City Surveillance in Africa: Mapping Chinese AI Surveillance Across 11 Countries, the latest report by the African Digital Rights Network (ADRN) and the Institute…

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Smart solutions for safety in high-hazard critical industries

Smart solutions for safety in high-hazard critical industries

Quentin Daffarn, CEO at UC-Wireless. Safety remains a critical priority in sectors such as mining, oil and gas, nuclear and industrial manufacturers. Workers often operate in close proximity to heavy machinery across vast industrial sites and may be exposed to hazardous environments and conditions. Maintaining strict safety standards is therefore essential, not only to protect…

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Africa: AI – ‘African Govts Are Using ‘Smart City’ Systems to Monitor Dissent and Consolidate State Control’

Africa: Rapid Rise of Smart City Surveillance Tech Across Africa to Spy On Citizens

Brighton, UK — A massive expansion of AI-enabled surveillance of public spaces across Africa is violating citizens’ freedoms and the fundamental human right to privacy, warns a new report by the Institute of Development Studies. African governments are paying billions of dollars to Chinese companies for so-called ‘smart city’ products for public space surveillance –…

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DSTI intros smart tech for ECape farmers

DSTI intros smart tech for ECape farmers

The SASSAM platform provides soil analysis, field event logging, pest and disease identification, weather forecasting, and AI-driven forecasting. The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) has unveiled an initiative to drive modernisation in the agriculture sector in the Eastern Cape. Named the South African System of Systems for Agricultural Modernisation (SASSAM), the initiative looks…

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Solar, wind and smart grids

Solar, wind and smart grids

For many years, electricity in mining was treated purely as a cost to be managed and was not considered a strategic lever. But this thinking has changed significantly, with mining companies investing in large-scale renewable energy projects. The onslaught of Eskom’s aggressive tariff hikes, grid constraints and rising global decarbonisation pressures now means that renewable…

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