Smart People, Smart Cities
Join us for a public lecture by Professor Jason Cohen and Professor Judy Backhouse.
Smart People, Smart Cities
Professor Jason Cohen and Professor Judy Backhouse
The Information Systems for Smart Cities in Africa project ran from 2014 to 2016 and investigated the information needs and preferences of residents of Johannesburg and how these needs mapped to the city’s information services. This public lecture concludes the project, presenting three of the key themes to emerge from the research.
Our research highlighted the need to move the Smart City discourse from technology-focused to resident-focused. Key themes that emerged as specific to our position in South Africa and Africa included how smartness is understood, how smart cities can be inclusive and the importance of trust in developing the Smart City.
Obakeng Morapeli Matlhoko (Obby1k)
As an example of an African Smart City solution, Sowertech will showcase their Afta Robot smart taxi app and discuss the implementation challenges.
RSVP
Wits Professional Development Hub, Corner Jan Smuts Avenue and Empire Roads
Wednesday the 27th September, 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Registration and refreshments from 5:00pm
RSVP: judy.backhouse@wits.ac.za
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Southern Centre for Inequality Studies Seminar
From Growth to Wellbeing: Why our development model is anachronistic and what to do about it
PRESENTED BY: LORENZO FIORAMONTI, Professor of Political Economy and Jean Monnet Chair: Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria; Deputy Project Leader: Future Africa Campus; Extraordinary Professor: Centre for Complex Systems in Transition,School of Public Leadership, University of Stellenbosch
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Is VAT regressive?
Debating the Budget tax proposals - is VAT regressive?
Professor Jannie Rossouw, Head of the School of Economic and Business Sciences, invites you to join us for a public seminar to discuss the budget and specifically the VAT proposals.
Speakers: Professor Imraan Valodia, Dr Gilad Isaacs
Moderator: Hilary Joffe
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Beyond a Treasury View of the World
Heterodox economic policy options for growth, employment and redistribution in South Africa: reflections from theory and history.
Presenter: Professor Vishnu Padayachee
This paper aims to set out some key alternative macroeconomic policy ideas for further debate and research in the context of the multi-disciplinary approach of the Wits Inequality Project. We ask what kind of macroeconomic policy interventions will be essential for growth and employment generation and to a successful struggle against rising income and wealth inequality in South Africa, and elsewhere. My assertion is that that unless we have a supportive macroeconomic framework, many other economic and social policy interventions for addressing growth and inequality will likely fail to gain much traction or purchase for budgetary and related reasons. I draw on both history and theory to demonstrate the early and respectable roots of heterodox economic thinking and support for a more activist state-led macroeconomic policy. Those supportive of alternative heterodox policy ideas are often and quickly labelled macroeconomic populists or madmen and I aim to show that such heterodox, state led approaches to growth and development also have a rich history and respectable pedigree behind them. I comment briefly on the American New Deal and the recommendations of the South African Macroeconomic Research Group. Both were examples, in very different eras, of progressive macroeconomic policy interventions based on a state-led investment and ‘crowding in’ approach to development in direct contrast to a private finance, market led and ‘crowding out’ neoclassical orthodoxy. The paper then reviews some key ideas underlying a post-Keynesian approach, and ends with some specific proposals for macroeconomic reform in South Africa.
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The Unresolved National Question: The Land Debate
The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) and the Thabo Mbeki Foundation invite you to a panel discussion on the national land debate.
Title: The Unresolved National Question: The Land Debate
Speakers:
- Mavuso Msimang, Chairperson of the Boards of Corruption Watch and iSimangaliso Wetland Park
- Dr Aninka Claassens, Director of the Land & Accountability Research Centre (LARC), Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town
- Adv. Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, South African lawyer, public speaker, author, political activist and a member of the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC)
Moderator:
Professor Edward Webster, the interim Director of the SCIS
Topics of discussion:
- A political history overview of South Africa’s land debate
- Structural barriers to equitably distributing the land
- Feasible solutions under the current Constitution.
Date: Thursday, 8 November 2018 Time: 17:30 for 18:00 Venue: Wits Business School
About the Centre
The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies is the first research institute of its kind in the global South. It draws on the intellectual resources of Wits University, and partner institutions in South Africa and beyond, to host a truly interdisciplinary research and policy project focusing on understanding and addressing inequality in the global South. Although there are a number of centres for the study of inequality worldwide, they are almost exclusively in the global north, and in the United Kingdom, and United States in particular. We believe that there are distinct drivers and characteristics of inequality in the South.
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