IT trends for 2017

2017 will be an exciting time and may well be the beginning of a new era for productivity growth. Digital transformation will be a major business focus, and success will hinge on how successful we will be in leveraging the abundance of new technologies, with new processes and new skills. Transformation is not about making incremental improvements. It is about turning things upside down and taking exponential steps in a new direction. This will be very disruptive and will make us uncomfortable, but this will lead to growth. 

Here are the top 10 trends we believe will have the biggest impact in 2017. 

World Must Work Together To Ensure Africa's Young Can Seize Their Potential And Thrive, Says Bill Gates

PRETORIA, South Africa, 18 July 2016, -/African Media Agency (AMA)/- Africa's future rests in the hands of its youth - and every effort must be made to ensure they thrive, philanthropist and entrepreneur Bill Gates said in South Africa today (EDITORS: SUNDAY, 17 July 2016).

Delivering the 2016 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at the University of Pretoria (Mamelodi campus), Gates said he was optimistic about the future of the continent - because of its young people.

Pointing out that Africa was demographically the world's youngest continent - in the next 35 years, it is estimated that 2-billion babies will be born in Africa and by 2050, 40% of the world's children will live in Africa - Gates said he believed Africa's youth "can be the source of a special dynamism".