Closing the Gap is an accessible overview of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and the impact it is set to have on various sectors in South Africa and Africa. It explores the previous industrial revolutions that have led up to this point and outlines South Africa’s position been through each one.

With a focus on artificial intelligence as a core concept in understanding the 4IR, this book uses familiar concepts to explain artificial intelligence, how it works and how it can be used in banking, mining, medicine and many other fields.

Written from an African perspective, Closing the Gap addresses the challenges and fears around the 4IR by pointing to the opportunities presented by new technologies and outlining some of the challenges and successes to date

It is almost impossible to keep up with the pace and direction in which business and technology are moving today.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. AUTOMATION. BLOCKCHAIN. BIG DATA. INTERNET OF THINGS. THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Who actually knows what any of these concepts mean for their business, much less how to integrate them? Things are moving at a faster pace than ever before and trying to keep up has become intimidating and overwhelming. It’s tempting to bury your head in the sand than try to make head or tail of it all. But none of the buzzwords actually matter! You don’t have to jump aboard every single change and adjustment in the market, or trade in your suit for a T-shirt, jeans and sneaker combo. If you have the right context, it’s a lot simpler to understand and use technological shifts as an opportunity to transform your business.

Tech Adjacent is about understanding the principles of tech and its pace, hearing the footsteps of where it might be going, knowing how disruption and innovation work tangibly and, most importantly, leveraging it for your individual exponential success. Innovation is contextual, so while Uber, Airbnb and Facebook are grandiose Silicon Valley success stories, they have little relevance in our own market. This book shares stories and case studies of African businesses, exposing who is getting disrupted as we speak and why, as well as how new companies are leading the next wave of growth. Mushambi Mutuma’s experience and expertise in both business and as a tech entrepreneur give real-life context to rapid change, unlocking future opportunities and offering tools to predict where your audience and industry are heading. He sells no big ideas, but genuinely shares his unique perspectives and know-how to help whoever he can in the process.

Tech Adjacent isn’t just another book on growing your business in 100 days, nor is it dry academic theory. It is the guidebook for not only surviving but excelling in a world of exponential growth. Whether you are a start-up entrepreneur or a corporate executive, this guide is a must for both present and future leaders.

Connect: Writing For Online Audiences is a timeous guide for South Africans working in the digital space. It encapsulates the current digital landscape in South Africa, with its constraints and opportunities for reaching audiences via social media platforms, websites, blogs, apps and email. And it is designed to help students as well as industry decision-makers connect with audiences, whether as social media managers, search engine writers, digital analysts, copywriters, content marketing strategists or digital public relations executives.

Primarily, these are all online storytellers and this book aims to assist them in achieving their goals.

The book draws on reputable brands for best-practice examples. It uses South African examples of online campaigns alongside international names to provide a relevant yet globally situated experience for the South African reader. The contributing authors are all well-respected experts in their fields who share their invaluable experience in this book. Connect: Writing for Online Audiences is a must-have on the bookshelf (digital or physical) of every individual reaching out to an online readership.

*THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM BOOK CLUB PICK*

'A clear, compelling guide to some of the most pressing debates in technology today.' Bill Gates, from the foreword

'The de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large.' The New York Times

'One of the few executives willing to speak openly about the industry's most vexing issues.' Sunday Times

Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: when your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create.

This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. While sweeping digital transformation holds great promise, we have reached an inflection point. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and new approaches are needed to manage an era defined by even more powerful inventions like artificial intelligence. Companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future, and governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation.

In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne bring us a captivating narrative from the cockpit of one of the world's largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no pre-existing playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of artificial intelligence, big tech's relationship to inequality, and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir," the book pulls back the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company's most crucial recent decision points as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. There are huge ramifications for communities and countries, and Brad Smith provides a thoughtful and urgent contribution to that effort.

From Microsoft's President and one of the tech industry's wisest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates.

In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith takes us behind the scenes on some of the biggest stories to hit the tech industry in the past decade and some of the biggest threats we face. From Edward Snowden's NSA leak to the NHS WannaCry ransomware attack, this book is essential reading to understand what's happening in the world around us.

If you watched Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates on Netflix, you will find Tools and Weapons equally fascinating.

'This is a colourful and insightful insiders' view of how technology is both empowering us and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future.' Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs

Gain a strong understanding of IT project management as you learn to apply today's most effective project management tools and techniques with the unique approach found in INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECT MANAGEMENT, 8E. This book emphasizes the latest developments and skills to help you prepare for the Project Management Professional (PMP) or Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) exams. While this edition reflect content from the latest the PMBOK (R) Guide, it goes well beyond the Guide to provide a meaningful context for project management. Hundreds of timely examples highlight IT projects, while quick quizzes, discussion questions, exercises, and ongoing cases reinforce your learning. Time-saving template files assist in completing tasks. Examples from familiar companies featured in today's news, an Agile case, MindView software, and a guide to using Microsoft Project 2013 help you master IT project management skills that are marketable around the globe.

The Business Analysts completely dissolves the perception that the IT industry dictates to businesses what IT systems they will use and dispels the myth that business users and IT technicians are from different planets. It suggests how to create an environment in which everybody works together in an exciting and refreshing way – a paradigm shift in the way business analysis projects are done.

The IT industry has to move to a point where it realises that the users of IT systems and the technical personnel are both equally responsible for getting the system to work. The users of the IT system should be an integral part of the team when the system is being put together. This, unfortunately, is not the norm within the industry. It is the business analyst’s responsibility, among others, to make sure that communication flows freely between all the parties involved.

This book gives the business analyst the tools and techniques to find out what the business users of IT systems really need and to guide the project to meet those needs.

In his sophomore year of college, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. The site caught on like wildfire, and soon students nationwide were on Facebook. Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from Zuckerberg's first, modest iteration. It has grown into a tech giant, the largest social media platform and one of the most gargantuan companies in the world, with a valuation of more than $576 billion and almost 3 billion users. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life. And in light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing "fake news" accounts, the handling of its users' personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO, never has the company been more central to the national conversation. Based on years of exclusive reporting and interviews with Facebook's key executives and employees, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Steven Levy's sweeping narrative digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.

'Shines an incisive and entertaining light into the secretive world of the South Korean technology giant shaping our digital lives in ways we probably can't imagine' -- Brad Stone

Can the Asian giant beat Apple?

Based on years of reporting on Samsung for the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and Time from his base in South Korea, and his countless sources inside and outside the company, Geoffrey Cain offers the first deep look behind the curtains of the biggest company nobody knows.

How has this happened? Forty years ago, Samsung was a rickety Korean agricultural conglomerate that produced sugar, paper, and fertilizer. But with the rise of the PC revolution, Chairman Lee Byung-chul came up with an incredibly risky multimillion dollar plan to make Samsung a major supplier of computer chips. Lee had been wowed by a young Steve Jobs who sat down with the chairman to offer his advice, and Lee quickly became obsessed with creating a tech empire.

Today, Samsung employs over 350,000 people – over four times as many as Apple – and their revenues have grown 40 times their 1987 level. Samsung alone now make up more than 20% of South Korea’s exports and sells more smartphones than any other company in the world. And furthermore, they don’t just make their own phones, but are one of Apple’s chief supplier on technology critical to the iPhone. Yet their disastrous recall of the Galaxy Note 7, with numerous reports of phones spontaneously bursting into flames, reveals the dangers of the company's headlong attempt to overtake Apple at any cost.

A sweeping, insider account of the Korean's company's ongoing war against the likes of Google and Apple, Samsung Rising shows how a determined and fearless Asian competitor is poised to take on the giants of the tech world.

When he was just twenty-three years old, Evan Spiegel, the brash CEO of the social network Snapchat, stunned the world when he and his co-founders walked away from a three-billion-dollar offer from Facebook: how could an app teenagers use to text dirty photos dream of a higher valuation? Was this hubris, or genius?

In How To Turn Down A Billion Dollars, Billy Gallagher takes us inside the rise of one of Silicon Valley’s hottest start-ups. Snapchat began as a late-night dorm room revelation before Spiegel went on to make a name for himself as a visionary C EO worth billions, linked to celebrities like Taylor Swift and his fiancée, Miranda Kerr.

A fellow Stanford undergrad and fraternity brother of the company’s founding trio, Billy Gallagher has covered Snapchat from the start. His inside account offers an entertaining trip through the excess and drama of the hazy early days with a professional insight into the challenges Snapchat faces as it transitions from a playful app to one of the tech industry’s preeminent public companies. In the tradition of great business narratives, How To Turn Down A Billion Dollars offers the definitive account of a company whose goal is no less than to remake the future of entertainment.

The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone Microsoft's CEO tells the inside story of the company's continuing transformation, while tracing his own journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant changes of the digital era. LONGLISTED FOR THE FT & MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD Satya Nadella grew up in India, studied in the US and went on to become Microsoft's third CEO after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. In Hit Refresh he offers a unique view of the transformation happening inside one of the world's most iconic tech companies, and the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced - including artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing. Nadella examines how people, organisations and societies can and must transform - 'hit refresh' - in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal. Yet at its core, this book is about humans, and how one of our essential qualities - empathy - will become ever more valuable in a world where technological advancement will alter the status quo as never before.

The next great technological disruption is coming.

The titans of Silicon Valley are racing to build the last, best computer that the world will ever need. They know that whoever successfully creates it will revolutionise our relationship with technology – and make billions of dollars in the process. They call it conversational AI.

Computers that can speak and think like humans do may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but they are rapidly moving towards reality. In Talk to Me, veteran tech journalist James Vlahos meets the researchers at Google, Amazon and Apple who are leading the way to a voice computing revolution. He explores how voice tech will transform every sector of society: handing untold new powers to businesses, upending traditional notions of privacy, revolutionising access to information, and fundamentally altering the way we understand human consciousness. And he even tries to understand the significance of the revolution firsthand – by building a chatbot version of his terminally ill father.

Vlahos’s research leads him to one fundamental question: What happens when our computers become as articulate, compassionate, and creative as we are?

Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down.

In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it.

Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online – a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.

'Rana el Kaliouby's vision for how technology should work in parallel with empathy is bold, inspired and hopeful' Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global 'This lucid and captivating book by a renowned pioneer of emotion-AI tackles one of the most pressing issues of our time: How can we ensure a future where this technology empowers rather than surveils and manipulates us?' Max Tegmark, professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Life 3.0 We are entering an empathy crisis. Most of our communication is conveyed through non-verbal cues - facial expressions, tone of voice, body language - nuances that are completely lost when we interact through our smartphones and other technology. The result is a digital universe that's emotion-blind - a society lacking in empathy. Rana el Kaliouby discovered this when she left Cairo, a newly-married, Muslim woman, to take up her place at Cambridge University to study computer science. Many thousands of miles from home, she began to develop systems to help her better connect with her family. She started to pioneer the new field of Emotional Intelligence (EI). She now runs her company, Affectiva (the industry-leader in this emerging field) that builds EI into our technology and develops systems that understand humans the way we understand one another. In a captivating memoir, Girl Decoded chronicles el Kaliouby's mission to humanise technology and what she learns about humanity along the way.

Frank Batten Sr. (1927-2009) created the Weather Channel in 1982, despite mocking by colleagues in the media that around-the-clock weather broadcasts would be as exciting as watching paint dry. The network, and later its companion website, Weather.com, became the largest private weather company in the world and an American cultural icon.

Yet few have heard of Batten, a media pioneer whose Virginia newspaper was the only major daily to back school integration. At a time when American corporate greed was making headlines, without fanfare and limelight Batten built a media empire centered on honesty, integrity, and ethics.

Starting out in his uncle's newspaper business in Norfolk, Virginia, as a reporter and advertising salesman, he assumed leadership of the "Virginian-Pilot" and "Ledger-Star" at the age of twenty-seven and grew Landmark Communications into a media powerhouse. He championed racial equality, a position not often taken in Virginia during the 1950s. His flagship newspaper, the "Pilot, " was the only daily paper in Virginia to back court-ordered school desegregation. He created two billion-dollar businesses and gave away more than $400 million to charity, nearly all of it to education. As chairman of the Associated Press from 1982 to 1987, he helped guide the news agency back on a sound financial footing.

Batten also faced a tremendous personal challenge that would have sidelined many: he lost his vocal cords to cancer two years before starting the Weather Channel.

This is the untold story of a man whose name few recognize, yet who helped change the face of the media in the twentieth century.

Although dramatic changes like the emergence of electronic libraries and academic search engines have bombarded the research front in recent years, little of the underlying research process has changed. Peer review and the role of archival publications remain as important as ever. Information technology research - a practical guide for computer science and informatics prepares students for research by enabling them to identify, observe and master the methods used in their particular fields of specialty.

The dramatic inside story of the downfall of Michael Eisner--Disney Chairman and CEO--and the scandals that drove America's best-known entertainment company to civil war.
"When You Wish Upon a Star," "Whistle While You Work," "The Happiest Place on Earth"--these are lyrics indelibly linked to Disney, one of the most admired and best-known companies in the world. So when Roy Disney, chairman of Walt Disney Animation and nephew of founder Walt Disney, abruptly resigned in November 2003 and declared war on chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner, he sent shock waves through the entertainment industry, corporate boardrooms, theme parks, and living rooms around the world--everywhere Disney does business and its products are cherished.
Drawing on unprecedented access to both Eisner and Roy Disney, current and former Disney executives and board members, as well as thousands of pages of never-before-seen letters, memos, transcripts, and other documents, James B. Stewart gets to the bottom of mysteries that have enveloped Disney for years: What really caused the rupture with studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a man who once regarded Eisner as a father but who became his fiercest rival? How could Eisner have so misjudged Michael Ovitz, a man who was not only "the most powerful man in Hollywood" but also his friend, whom he appointed as Disney president and immediately wanted to fire? What caused the break between Eisner and Pixar chairman Steve Jobs, and why did Pixar abruptly abandon its partnership with Disney? Why did Eisner so mistrust Roy Disney that he assigned Disney company executives to spy on him? How did Eisner control the Disney board for so long, and what really happened in the fateful board meeting in September 2004, when Eisner played his last cards?
"DisneyWar" is an enthralling tale of one of America's most powerful media and entertainment companies, the people who control it, and those trying to overthrow them. It tells a story that--in its sudden twists, vivid, larger-than-life characters, and thrilling climax--might itself have been the subject of a Disney classic--except that it's all true.

Information technology research - a practical guide for computer science and informatics is targeted at senior students in any of the many branches of information technology, including computer science, informatics and information systems. It is intended to introduce the student to the operation of the research process in these subjects to an extent that will enable them to identify, observe and master the methods used in their particular fields of specialty. Students who need such guidance are, primarily, likely to be those embarking on a study for the purpose of a research-based qualification and those who are busy with a formal research-methods course to prepare them for research.

In 2011, Tim Cook took on an impossible task - following in the footsteps of one of history's greatest business visionaries, Steve Jobs. Facing worldwide scrutiny, Cook (who was often described as shy, unassuming and unimaginative) defied all expectations. Under Cook's leadership Apple has soared: its stock has nearly tripled to become the world's first trillion-dollar company. From the massive growth of the iPhone to new victories like the Apple Watch, Cook is leading Apple to a new era of success.

But he's also spearheaded a cultural revolution within the company. Since becoming CEO, Cook has introduced a new style of management that emphasizes kindness, collaboration and honesty, and has quietly pushed Apple to support sexual and racial equal rights and invest heavily in renewable energy.

Drawing on authorized access with several Apple insiders, Kahney, the world's leading reporter on Apple, tells the inspiring story of how one man attempted to replace the irreplaceable and succeeded better than anyone thought possible.

Leander Kahney has covered Apple for more than a dozen years and has written four popular books about Apple and the culture of its followers, including Inside Steve's Brain and Jony Ive. The former news editor for Wired.com, he is currently the editor and publisher of CultofMac.com. He lives in San Francisco.

How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world's fastest growing software company in less than a decade? For the first time, Marc Benioff, the visionary founder, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, tells how he and his team created and used new business, technology, and philanthropic models tailored to this time of extraordinary change. Showing how salesforce.com not only survived the dotcom implosion of 2001, but went on to define itself as the leader of the cloud computing revolution and spark a $46-billion dollar industry, Benioff's story will help business leaders and entrepreneurs stand out, innovate better, and grow faster in any economic climate.

In "Behind the Cloud," Benioff shares the strategies that have inspired employees, turned customers into evangelists, leveraged an ecosystem of partners, and allowed innovation to flourish.

Jeff Lawson, software developer turned CEO of Twilio, creates a new playbook for unleashing the full potential of software developers in any organization, showing how to help management utilize this coveted and valuable workforce to enable growth, solve a wide range of business problems and drive digital transformation. From banking and retail to insurance and finance, every industry is turning digital, and every company needs the best software to win the hearts and minds of customers. The landscape has shifted from the classic build vs. buy question, to one of build vs. die. Companies have to get this right to survive. But how do they make this transition? Software developers are sought after, highly paid, and desperately needed to compete in the modern, digital economy. Yet most companies treat them like digital factory workers without really understanding how to unleash their full potential. Lawson argues that developers are the creative workforce who can solve major business problems and create hit products for customers-not just grind through rote tasks. From Google and Amazon, to one-person online software companies-companies that bring software developers in as partners are winning. Lawson shows how leaders who build industry changing software products consistently do three things well. First, they understand why software developers matter more than ever. Second, they understand developers and know how to motivate them. And third, they invest in their developers' success. As a software developer and public company CEO, Lawson uses his unique position to bridge the language and tools executives use with the unique culture of high performing, creative software developers. Ask Your Developer is a toolkit to help business leaders, product managers, technical leaders, software developers, and executives achieve their common goal-building great digital products and experiences. How to compete in the digital economy? In short: Ask Your Developer.

Working Backwards is an insider's breakdown of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time, top-level Amazon executives.

Colin started at Amazon in 1998; Bill joined in 1999. In Working Backwards, these two long-serving Amazon executives reveal and codify the principles and practices that drive the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them, much of it in the early aughts—a period of unmatched innovation that brought products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services to life—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was refined, articulated, and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable.

With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels and reveal how the company’s culture has been defined by four characteristics: customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence. Bryar and Carr explain the set of ground-level practices that ensure these are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business.

Working Backwards is a practical guidebook and a corporate narrative, filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how it has affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time.

Teaches the basic, yet all-important, data skills required by today's media professionals The authors of Data Skills for Media Professionals have assembled a book that teaches key aspects of data analysis, interactive data visualization and online map-making through an introduction to Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Google My Maps, all free, highly intuitive, platform-agnostic tools available to any reader with a computer and a web connection. Delegating the math and design work to these apps leaves readers free to do the kinds of thinking that media professionals do most often: considering what questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to evaluate and communicate the answers. Although focused on Google apps, the book draws upon complementary aspects of the free QGIS geographic information system, the free XLMiner Analysis ToolPak Add-on for Google Sheets, and the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet application. Worked examples rely on frequently updated data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Election Commission, the National Bridge Inventory of structurally deficient bridges, and other federal sources, giving readers the option of immediately applying what they learn to current data they can localize to any area in the United States. The book offers chapters covering: basic data analysis; data visualization; making online maps; Microsoft Excel and pivot tables; matching records with Excel's VLOOKUP function; basic descriptive and inferential statistics; and other functions, tools and techniques. Serves as an excellent supplemental text for easily adding data skills instruction to courses in beginning or advanced writing and reporting Features computer screen captures that illustrate each step of each procedure Offers downloadable datasets from a companion web page to help students implement the techniques themselves Shows realistic examples that illustrate how to perform each technique and how to use it on the job Data Skills of Media Professionals is an excellent book for students taking skills courses in the more than 100 ACEJMC-accredited journalism and mass communication programs across the United States. It would also greatly benefit those enrolled in advanced or specialized reporting courses, including courses dedicated solely to teaching data skills.