Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi makes a point during the Social Media Summit for Government. The platform emphasised the critical need for a human-centric approach to technology and citizen engagement while reiterating its position as South Africa's premier forum for knowledge exchange in public sector communication.
The fourth annual Social Media Summit for Government (the Summit) concluded at the University of Johannesburg Business School (JBS) with a strong consensus: unless artificial intelligence is deliberately harnessed to include citizens the government currently cannot hear, and unless public services become easier to access only for citizens who are already connected, digitally confident and able to afford data, South Africa's digital transformation will fail to fulfil its democratic promise.
Convened by Decode, the Pan-African reputation advisory and strategic communications firm, in partnership with JBS and endorsed by the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA), the two-day summit, held from 8 to 9 July, brought together public sector leaders, communicators, policymakers, academics, technologists, journalists and content creators under the theme "Reimagining Citizen Engagement through Human Intelligence + Artificial Intelligence".
