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Week 1: Locating Myself in the Digital Economy

Growing up in Midrand, between Johannesburg and Pretoria, I’ve always been surrounded by signs of digital progress—office parks, fibre lines, those self service screens at McDonalds. At the same time, I’ve seen communities nearby with limited connectivity and few digital opportunities. Week 1 helped me put words to this tension.

I began to see myself not just as a future ‘tech person’, but as someone who must navigate the gap between those who benefit from digital systems and those who are left out. The idea that Information Systems strategy shapes who gets access to opportunities resonated strongly with my own observations.

Because my values are grounded in community being raised in one. I feel a responsibility to work towards digital strategies that enable participation rather than deepen exclusion. Week 1 was a reminder that my identity, background, and values are not separate from IS—they actively shape how I will approach my work.

Week 2: Ethics, Sustainability, and Difficult Trade-offs

In Week 2, the conversation shifted from ‘what technology can do’ to ‘what technology should do’. We explored how decisions around automation, AI, and data can increase efficiency while also risking job losses, bias, and environmental harm.

Thinking about these trade-offs in our context; the Red, Gold and Green context—where unemployment and energy insecurity are ongoing realities—made the case for ethical IS leadership feel urgent. Frameworks like utilitarianism and rights-based ethics became more than theory; they became tools for questioning whether a digital solution is truly responsible.

I’m beginning to see that part of my role as an IS professional will be to speed down fast moving innovation just enough to ask: Who might be harmed? Who is left out? And how can we design strategies that balance people, planet, and profit?

Week 3: Human-Centred Design and Digital Social Innovation

One of the most transformative ideas introduced in Week 3 was human-centred design (HCD). Traditional strategic approaches often begin with technological capabilities or organisational objectives. Human-centred design challenges this perspective by starting with people’s lived experiences.

Rather than asking what technology can do, human-centred design asks what problems people actually face and how technology might help address them. This approach emphasises empathy, observation, and iterative experimentation through processes such as the design thinking cycle.

Human-centred design is particularly important in constrained environments where technological solutions must operate within limitations related to infrastructure, affordability, and digital literacy. In such contexts, designing systems without understanding user realities often leads to low adoption or unintended consequences.

A good example of digital social innovation in South Africa is the ABALOBI platform, which supports small-scale fishers by helping them track catches, access markets, and improve sustainability practices. What makes this initiative effective is that it was developed through close collaboration with the fishing communities themselves. By incorporating local knowledge and user feedback, the system addresses real problems rather than imposing external assumptions.

This idea resonates with what I am learning through our group project, which involves engaging with informal food vendors in Belhar. Observing how businesses operate in real environments highlights how important it is to design solutions that align with daily routines and practical constraints.

Human-centred design therefore shifts strategy from being purely technology-driven to being deeply people-focused. In doing so, it creates opportunities for digital innovation that genuinely improves livelihoods and social outcomes.

Week 4: Value Propositions and Strategic Fit

Week 4 explored how organisations define and communicate value through digital strategies. One key insight from this discussion is that value is highly contextual. What one group perceives as valuable may not necessarily be meaningful in another setting.

In many corporate environments, value is often defined in terms of efficiency, cost reduction, or revenue generation. However, in different socio-economic contexts, value may take on entirely different meanings. For example, in informal or resource-constrained environments, value might involve improving reliability, reducing operational uncertainty, or enabling access to new customers.

Personas and narratives help organisations better understand these contextual differences. Personas transform abstract user groups into relatable individuals with specific needs, goals, and constraints. This allows designers and strategists to align digital solutions more closely with real-world experiences.

Narratives and storytelling further strengthen digital strategies by explaining how technological solutions address real problems. When organisations communicate value effectively, they create stronger connections between users and digital systems.

In the South African context, digital strategies must account for structural realities such as the extremely high mobile data costs, poor connectivity, and varying levels of digital literacy. Ignoring these factors can result in technologically impressive systems that fail to deliver meaningful value to users.

Reflecting on these insights, I believe that successful digital strategies must combine technological capability with contextual understanding. Information Systems professionals must therefore think beyond technical implementation and consider how systems create value for diverse stakeholders.