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Sign up for a LINK certificate course

- LINK Centre

The LINK Centre offers a suite of certificate courses, ranging from cybersecurity and digital governance to media freedom and telecoms policy.

The Centre's list of courses includes: 

Certificate in Telecoms Policy, Regulation and Management (TPRM)

TPRM, launched in the mid-1990s, is the LINK Centre's longest-running certificate course and is designed to address the constantly-evolving issues and concerns inherent in ICT deployment on the African continent. Registration is open for the 2023 offering, during the the weeks of 10-14 July, 14-18 August, and 18-22 September.

Certificate in IT Management for CIO Teams

The Wits Certificates in Chief Information Officer (CIO) Practice - offered at Levels 1,  2, and 3 -- cover issues relating to technology, strategic (C-level) management, business and human capital management processes, and ICT policy and regulation. Level 1 begins on 15 May 2023 - registration closes one week before the course's start date.

Certificate in Cybersecurity Professional Practice and Leadership (CPPL)

Cyberspace is deeply interwoven with commerce and industry, government service delivery, business, health and the daily lives of citizens. Regrettably, this offers fertile ground for opportunistic cybercrimes. The financial damage caused, including instances of personal data loss, increases dramatically each year. Threats and attacks are becoming more dynamic and complex. Detecting and attributing attacks and threats to malicious actors are a major challenge to cybersecurity experts. Cyberspace therefore requires resilience to secure effectively. Offered in partnership with Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE)

Certificate in Broadcasting and Digital Media Policy-Regulatory Trends

LINK Visiting Adjunct Professor and African media policy expert Justine Limpitlaw, and additional sector experts, present a series of lectures offering insight into the key market, technology, policy and regulatory trends in broadcasting and digital media today, focusing on global and Southern African dimensions. 2024 dates to be announced.

Certificate in Frontiers in Digital Government

This LINK Centre Certificate programme focuses on digital government formation in Africa, drawing on experiences and cases from across the continent. The programme is designed to keep participants abreast of the rapid developments in the field of e-governance, from both policy and practical, programme-implementation perspectives. The next offering will be in 2024.

Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression in Africa

This free online course was developed to honour the life and work of activist Jeanette Minnie. It is currently switching platforms, and the dates of its next delivery are still to be announced.

Certificate in Postal Policy and Regulation for the Digital Era

This course offers insight into the operation, policy and regulation of the postal sector. The course was specifically requested by the regional regulatory association, the Communications Regulators' Association of Southern Africa (CRASA), an organisation of 13 member regulators. The content is relevant to all Pan African Postal Union (PAPU) member countries. 

General short course enquiries

Nokhanyo Yolwa, thelma.yolwa@wits.ac.za tel: +27-71-939-8867  

SANLiC–OUP Agreement on Open Access Publishing

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The South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC) has signed a landmark three-year agreement with Oxford University Press.

The agreement combines read and publish services in the majority of Oxford University Press (OUP) journals in a single agreement for participating SANLiC institutions.

Before this agreement, only a tenth of SA's research output in the Oxford collection of 360 hybrid subscription journals were published open access due to affordability.

Source SANLiC website. Read the press statement on the SANLIC website.

AJIC Issue 30

- LINK

The December issue of the African Journal of Information and Communication is available online and in print.

This latest issue of the journal includes articles on Articles on YouTube micro-celebrities; a word embedding trained on news data; using machine learning to predict low academic performance; radio, mobile communications, and women’s empowerment; assessment of website quality; ABET accreditation of computer science programmes; and national digital transformation policy and practice.

The African Journal of Information and Communication (AJIC) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, open access academic journal focused on the myriad dimensions of electronic and digital ecosystems that facilitate information, communication, innovation and transformation in African economies and in the broader Global South. Accredited by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), AJIC publishes online, free to the user, under a Creative Commons licence, and does not impose article processing charges. AJIC is indexed in Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) SA, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Sabinet African Journals and Wits University WIReDSpace, and is hosted on the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf ) Khulisa Journals platform.

The Journal is published by the LINK Centre at Wits, with online hosting provided by the Khulisa Journals open access platform of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)

 

Working Paper: Digital Customs Transformation

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Paper by LINK's Luci Abrahams and Marke Burke and tralac's Trudy Hartzenberg, prepared for the UJ SARChI Chair in Industrial Development.

Abstract

This study explores the evolution towards modernisation of the customs administration function, using a South African case study. Adopting a framework consisting of nine dimensions, the study characterises this process as incremental, leading towards the formation of strategic, digital, dynamic capabilities. These capabilities enable the customs administration to detect non-compliance more effectively and to proactively manage customs to the benefit of traders and the economy.

Read the paper here.

The Working Paper series is intended to stimulate policy debate

Russell Southwood in conversation with Luci Abrahams

- LINK Centre

The author of Africa 2.0 joined delegates online at the LINK-Balancing Act seminar

Balancing Act's Russell Southwood, long-time African telecoms and internet analyst and author of Africa 2.0 - Inside a Continent’s Communications Revolution, in conversation with Wits LINK Centre Director Dr. Luci Abrahams at the LINK–Balancing Act seminar held at the Wits Business School in Johannesburg.

Russell Southwood is the Founder and CEO of the consultancy and research practice, Balancing Act, which has focused on telecoms, internet and media in sub-Saharan Africa over the last 20 years. He is also the author of Less Walk, More Talk - How Celtel and the Mobile Phone Changed Africa and with Kelly Wong, Building a Data Ecosystem for Food Security and Sustainability, Agtech V3.0.

Africa 2.0 provides an important history of how two technologies - mobile calling and internet - were made available to millions of sub-Saharan Africans, and the impact they have had on their lives. The book deals with the political challenges of liberalisation and privatisation that needed to be in place in order for these technologies to be built. It analyses how the mobile phone fundamentally changed communications in sub-Saharan Africa and the ways Africans have made these technologies part of their lives, opening up a very different future. The book offers a critical examination of the impact these technologies have had on development practices, and the key role development actors played in accelerating regulatory reform, fibre roll-out and mobile money. Southwood shows how corruption in the industry is a prism through which patronage relationships in government can be understood, and argues that the arrival of a start-up ecosystem in the region has the potential to change this. A vital overview of the changes of the last three decades, Africa 2.0 examines the transformative effects of mobile and internet technologies, and the very different future they have opened out for sub-Saharan Africa. SOURCE Manchester University Press

WATCH the interview here.

Rethinking identity, privacy and citizenship in public service digitalisation

- LINK Centre

Wits LINK Centre PhD candidate Mark Burke presents his doctoral research project.

Abstract
Is public service digitalisation edging us closer to a posthuman society? Or are we already living in one? This study explores how processes of automationdatafication and mediation that enable public service digitalisation influence identityprivacy and citizenship. The investigation will examine how these processes shape underlying power relations in citizen-government interactions to understand the emerging mode of digital government in South Africa. The research adopts a qualitative, multi-case study approach drawing on posthumanism and human-computational assemblage theories, while the epistemological tools from actor-network theory will be used to frame and anchor the methodology.

Presenter:
Mark Burke (Candidate, Wits PhD in Interdisciplinary Digital Knowledge Economy Studies)

Discussant:
Prof. Hossana Twinomurinzi, University of Johannesburg

Moderator: 
Dr. Luci Abrahams

WATCH the video here

Digital diplomacy: The geo-politics of ‘tech’ and emerging technologies

- LINK Centre

An article for defenceWeb by LINK Research Associate Dr Kiru Pillay.

Emerging technologies increasingly impact sovereign decisions and expands the range of players who can influence political action, with corporations and empowered individuals exerting greater influence[1].

This is probably best illustrated the recent acquisition of Twitter by a single individual! Today’s technology companies are different from previous incarnations of large corporations (which were also able to influence economics and societies) in that their products, services and platforms are more global, pervasive, influential and consequently thrust the tech sector into the centre of both national and foreign policy issues.

Sourced from defenceWeb, read the full article here.

The International Experience in Open Digital Governance

- LINK Centre

A report by Luci Abrahams and Mark Burke for the SA-EU Dialogue Facility's International Dialogue on Strengthening Open Digital Governance in South Africa.

Paper PDF download available, under "Conference Papers", at Wits Tayarisha SA/EU Policy Dialogues.

Supported by the South African Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), the South African Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI), the Wits Tayarisha African Centre of Excellence in Digital Governance, and the Danish Ministry of Finance's Agency for Digitisation.

LINK–MICTSETA Research Chair supports students

- LINK Centre

The LINK-MICTSETA Research Chair is supporting five postgraduate research students studying in LINK's degree programmes.

The students are being supported in the study of ICT Policy and Regulation and Interdisciplinary Digital Knowledge Economy Studies.

Topics currently included in the Chair programme are:

  • Developing digital pedagogy skills of educators for the integration of tablet educational applications
  • Rethinking identity, privacy and citizenship in public service digitalisation in South Africa
  • Investigating cultural knowledge systems, Mandhwane and mind mobilisation for rural communities in the digital era
  • Digital transformation for social development: A study on primary health e-services
  • Distributed ledger technologies with artificial intelligence for anchoring smart systems and skills in state procurement

The LINK-MICTSETA Research Chair is funded by South Africa's Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICTSETA)

LINK gratefully acknowledges this valued contribution by the MICTSETA to the students' research endeavours, to the work of the LINK Centre, and to Wits University.

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