Putting Knowledge in Practice to improve Business Performance through Information & Communications Technologies in Southern Africa

Dolly Bhasin, Knowledge Entrepreneur MD, SPH Consultancy & eServices Pvt. Ltd.

Introduction The Need The Enablers

The Telecom Infrastructure The PAN Africa eNetwork

Knowledge Transfer Knowledge Intensive Business Services CASES

Knowledge Exchange for Healthcare and Education between India and Africa

Book and Book Printing Exports to Africa Conclusion

In today’s global world, creating knowledge for turning them into new products and services is crucial to maintain and enhance the competitiveness.

While enough research has been done on knowledge transfer approaches and impact in the Manufacturing sector, knowledge transfer in services sector has not been well explored.

In the developing and the underdeveloped countries, services constitute a major constituent to the economy.

In Ghana it accounted for 49.3 per cent of GDP in 2012

In South Africa it is as high as 69%. India's services sector contributes to about 60%

of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), 35 per cent of employment, a quarter of the total trade, and over half of the foreign investment inflows. Sources : Modern Ghana, www.modernghana.com

IBEF, http://www.ibef.org/industry/services.aspx

Examine how to use Knowledge intensive services to aid the knowledge transfer and facilitate service delivery seamlessly across continents between India and Africa using ICT.

Examine the Enablers PAN Africa network

Telecom Infrastructure in Africa

Collaboration between researchers and industry amongst India and South Africa will be explored through case studies in E-Education,

Telemedicine,

Book Publishing

Explore mechanisms to create ‘single continuum for knowledge’ through platforms for South African community-Indian Businesses to work and innovate together & create value

The State of Healthcare in Africa needs World Attention

Widespread incidence of communicable diseases - HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

In the health sector, Africa compares very poorly with the rest of the world.

▪ In 1997, child and juvenile death rates were 105 and 169 per 1000, as against 6 and 7 per 1000 respectively in developed countries.

▪ Life expectancy is 48.9 years, as against 77.7 years in developed countries.

▪ Only 16 doctors are available per 100 000 inhabitants, as against 253 in industrialized countries

Nutrition is an important ingredient of good health. The average daily intake of calories varies from

▪ 2384 in low-income countries - 2846 in middle-income countries

▪ 3390 in countries of OECD.

Eventually, improvement in health and nutrition directly contributes to improved well-being as the spread of diseases is controlled, infant mortality rates are reduced and life expectancy is higher. ▪ The link with poverty reduction is clearly established.

Source: NEPAD) Report, 2001

A 2007 World Bank policy research paper by Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Wößmann explored the link between educational quality and economic growth.

According to their analysis, policies that aim to improve education systems in developing nations have significant economic returns.

The finding indicates that long-term reforms to education will substantially increase GDP compared to countries that make no changes.

Additionally, the research establishes that quality of education has more implications on economic growth than merely increasing the quantity of schooling.

The report also suggests several broad policy initiatives that help students acquire cognitive skills and increase teaching quality.

Source: The Effect of Education on Brazil’s Economic Development

Telecom Infrastructure in Africa Infrastructure in Africa has increased over the past

years, in spite of the challenges of low population density, low incomes and large rural populations.

The mobile penetration in African countries has surpassed 600 million subscribers in 2011

Despite Africa lagging in ICT usage with an estimated 250 million Internet users, between 2000 and 2011 the growth of Internet usage exceeds a whopping 2,000 per cent

Source: Africa on the Move – Investment in ICT is Catalyzing Economic Growth, Global Services

Providing the adequate educational facilities and affordable healthcare to citizens are two prominent concerns of many developing countries.

Technological improvements, in terms of communication infrastructure for delivering quality education & healthcare uniformly, across length and breadth of the country, are a key factor in the progress of any country.

Efforts in delivering education and healthcare from resourceful urban areas/developed countries to inaccessible remote/rural areas have yielded fruitful results in terms of access to the quality services in time and cost effective manner.

Inspired by recent advances in the provision of healthcare and medical education through the use of information and communication technology, noting India’s long history of assisting in capacity building programmes and recognizing that Africa-India cooperation can play a major role in harnessing the benefits of globalization for mutual advantage,

The former President of India Dr. APJ. Abdul Kalam during the inaugural session of the Pan-African Parliament held at Johannesburg on 16th September 2004, proposed in his address to connect all the 53 nations of the African Union by a satellite and a fiber optic network

This network would provide communication for Tele-education, Tele – medicine, Internet, Video conferencing and VoIP services and also support e-Governance, e-Commerce, infotainment, resources mapping, meteorological services etc.

Now renamed PAN Africa eNetwork The Pan –African e-Network project is being funded by the Government

of India with an approved budgetary cost of INR 5429 Million i.e. over US$125 Million.

Source: www.telemedicineindia.com and www.panafricaenetwork.com

“Knowledge Transfer involves the processes for capturing, collecting and sharing explicit and tacit knowledge, including skills and competence. It includes both commercial and non-commercial activities such as research collaborations, consultancy, licensing, mobility of researchers, publication of knowledge, disseminating value added information, Learning systems, etc.”.

European Union Research

Knowledge transfer is a means by which expertise, knowledge, skills and capabilities are transferred from a knowledge-base - a University or college, a Research Centre or a research technology organization or a country to those in need of that knowledge, say a company, an individual, social enterprise or not-for-profit organization or another country.

The purpose of knowledge transfer is to catalyze and facilitate innovation.

Mostly, these services are facilitated through the setting up of a technology platform which acts as medium and intermediary to the knowledge transfer.

Knowledge intensive services can be defined as “economic activities conducted by private sector organizations that combine technology, knowledge (such as R&D) and highly skilled employees to provide a service to the market.“

- IGRiNN Glossary A common characteristic of KIBS firms is that clients

routinely play a critical role in co-producing the service solution along with the service provider

By strategically managing client co-production, service providers can improve operational efficiency, develop more optimal solutions and generate a sustainable competitive advantage (HBS)

Knowledge-Intensive Service Activities (KISAs) enables firms and public sector organizations to better innovate (OECD). .

The Pan African e-network project is by far the biggest project for telemedicine and distance education in Africa resulting from the growing partnership between India and Africa.

Under the Pan African e-Network Project, India has set up a fibre-optic network to provide satellite connectivity, tele-medicine and tele-education to countries of Africa.

The project aims to create significant linkages for tele-education and telemedicine, internet, video-conferencing and VoIP services, making available the facilities and expertise of some of the best universities and super-specialty hospitals in India to the people of Africa.

The project has been commissioned in 47 countries out of the 48 that have signed the agreement with TCIL for participating in the project.

Angola, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia have not signed the agreement for joining the project.

As per existing commitment, GOI will maintain the facilities created in each country for five years after commissioning them.

Under the Telemedicine component, patient end locations have already been set up in the 12 Indian Super Specialty Hospitals, namely: 1 All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi

2 Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Kochi

3 Apollo Hospitals, Chennai

4 CARE Hospital The Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad

5 Dr. Balabhai Nanavati Hospital, Mumbai

6 Escort Hearts Institute and Research Centre Limited, New Delhi

7 Fortis Hospital, Noida

8 HealthCare Global, Bangalore

9 Mool Chand Khairati Ram Hospital, New Delhi

10 Narayana Hrudayalaya Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangalore

11 Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science(Lucknow), Lucknow

12 Sri. Ramachandra Medical College & Research Institute, Chennai

These 12 Indian Super Specialty Hospitals have been connected to 48 Patient-End Locations/Hospitals in African

Tele-Medicine centres have been set up in four Regional Super Specialty Hospitals in Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Mauritius and Egypt and 5th is in the process of being set up in Senegal.

460 Tele-Medicine consultations have taken place under the Project. Regular CME sessions since 2009 are held from Super Specialty

Hospitals. 2439 CME Sessions in English and 167 CME Sessions in French have been held.

Telemedicine though still in its infancy stages in Africa is potentially a very useful conduit of health-care given the fact that the continent is resource limited and still enduring the effects of scarce human resource. With the telemedicine support, healthcare can now be delivered from specialists in India to remote and rural areas of Africa, at a fraction of the cost.

Knowledge Intensive Services To create a sustainable mechanism for long term knowledge intensive service delivery Dr. P. Reddy visualized Apollo Telemedicine Network Foundation (ATNF) and Apollo Tele Health Services (ATHS).

With the initial investments and early mover advantage, Apollo Hospitals are now able to offer affordable healthcare services through telemedicine in Africa as well as offer Medical Tourism to patients who could afford treatment in their Indian Hospitals.

Apollo Hospitals has successfully treated over 60000 foreign patients from across the world in last five years and the numbers are looking up every year.

Apollo group has created a landmark in Indo Africa knowledge exchange in the area of integrated healthcare services and capacity building of local (African) service providers.

Under the Pan Africa eNetwork , Tele-Education teaching centres have already been set-up in the five Indian Universities:

Amity University, NOIDA; IGNOU New Delhi; BITS, Pilani; University of Delhi; University of Madras.

Courses Offered • MBA • Master in Finance Control, • PG Diploma in IT, • M.Sc. in IT • Bachelor in Finance & Investment

Analysis

Knowledge transfer 47 Learning Centers (LCs) have already been set up in

African countries. Tele-Education learning centers have been set-up in the 5

Regional University Centers in Africa: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana; Makerere University, Uganda; Yaounde University, Cameroon; Alexandria Faculty of Commerce, Egypt and Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi.

9916 students from African countries have already registered with Indian universities for a variety of PG, UG and certificate courses. 3503 tele-education sessions have been held till end September 2012.

Knowledge Intensive Services Under the Regional Leading University for the Pan-African E-Network

Project, Makerere University was selected by the African Union to be the ICT Centre of excellence for Eastern Africa region and is mandated to oversee ICT African Union Initiatives in 13 countries on Tele-Education project.

As a HUB Uganda is in charge of equipment for use by the 53 countries for the PAN-African E-Network. It will also use this sophisticated equipment to broadcast local content all over Uganda and thus provide education for all at all levels of formal education in addition to informal education.

Overall the project is worth 200 million dollars funded by the Indian Government and African Union.

From geographically dispersed individual-centric learning, it is now time to move towards collective learning across Africa and the African countries start taking ownership of project after internalizing the knowledge gained.

Repro India Limited Repro was established in 1984 as a provider of integrated print

solutions to publishers and corporations the world over. Today, Repro offers significant backward and forward integration

which involves managing customer’s content, printing and delivering in different formats.

In the financial year 2010-11 REPRO clocked over INR 2.5 billion in revenue, with over 50% coming from overseas markets.

One stop solution to their needs, right from managing and repurposing content, to printing and binding to delivery anywhere across the globe. Serves customers across four continents.

They produce multiple product formats such as books, e-books and other interactive content.

Repro’s core activities are supported by a infrastructure which includes IT and two modern book printing plants in India.

Repro India Limited

Repro focusses on two markets- India, which has 1.2 billion people and where education is growing fast and other is Africa, with a population of 1.1 billion people. Almost 60% of the population in both these countries is in the

education segment from the age of 3-22.

Assuming 60% of this 1.2 billion people, you have close to 4 billion books requirements in each country in that specific segment.

Even at a dollar a book, they address the $4 billion market for the primary and school education in both countries.

Africa constitutes of 60% of all exports of Repro India. It supplies pupil books to 14 African countries.

Knowledge Intensive Services Repro India has acquired the printing setup of Macmillan

Publishers for 4 countries in Africa. Repro also aims to work with strategic partners who work in

local African markets to further consolidate its position in Africa.

From providing just export of books and printing services, Repro is now establishing local setups in Africa to offer value added services in the educational segments, including elearning and interactive educational content. Rapples is Repro’s tablet based learning solution.

Repro CloudStore, Repro’s digital storefront

A strategic tie-up with a global e-book store has given users of CloudStore a

vast sea of books to choose from.

All 3 Cases demonstrates the objective and are in support to the argument

To build more effective knowledge transfer between India and Africa, we need to create more platforms to enable information exchange at strategic levels. An Elearning platform on the cloud, which uses the

MOOC approach

An interactive platform to engage with Indian Diaspora in Africa for knowledge exchange in Literature, Culture and Education.

Online STEM Publications and Research Journals for Indian-African Researchers

Joint development of Ebooks for Children and Educational books Policy level interaction between India and African countries to have a

standardized educational content and syllabus drawn, so that Indian Publishers can develop targeted content for Educational system.

Joint Projects on developing Ebooks for Children and Education Facilitation of Medical Tourism to India from African countries through

the Telemedicine network for pre-screening the patients by the participating hospitals in India in the PAN African eNetwork.

Knowledge Shared is Knowledge Multiplied, as Dr. Kalam puts it in his book - "Two Billion Dreams: Celebrating India Africa Friendship”

“The challenge of the next phase of the project is to build bridges between all African tele-centres to forge a synergy of learning experience, as knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied” – Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam

I hope that we can see a ‘single continuum for knowledge’ by developing such platforms, where South African community and Indian Businesses work and innovate together to create information exchange in a systematic way to improve the business performance in the service delivery across continents but bonded through knowledge networks.

Knowledge Transfer through knowledge intensive services is truly

putting Knowledge in action to improve the business performance of not just the African but also the Indian businesses.

“If we can dream it, we can build it!”