By Sebuh Haileleul, Country GM Microsoft East & Southern Africa
As technology continually develops and people get used to new ways of doing things, it becomes essential for the public sector to modernise and transform its infrastructure and operations.
The Republic of Zambia and the African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM) will host the 37th Roundtable Conference on “Transforming Public Administration” from 29 February- to 4 March 2016 at Mulungushi International Conference Centre, Lusaka Zambia. This year Microsoft has partnered with AAPAM to highlight the value of embracing technology in order to transform service delivery. One key way is to adopt cloud technology.
The world of cloud computing is expanding across Africa. It enables greater flexibility, increases productivity and innovation, and is a secure and smart way of managing data. Yes – you read that correctly; working on the cloud is actually more secure than other more traditional ways of doing business.
Finding a secure solution that meets your needs
The perception is that with so much personal and organisational information at stake, you are vulnerable to cybercrime when your data is stored in the cloud. However, at Microsoft we work hard to ensure that this is not the case. You can also up the ante by making sure to use authorised software and using apps to encrypt your data on the cloud. In addition, our enterprise experience and approach to the cloud addresses your needs in a differentiated way.
For example, our hybrid cloud model is a flexible solution allowing you to transition at your own pace to the cloud. If you don’t want to put all your information on the cloud in one go, you can keep some of it on your existing server while you experiment with moving other data to the cloud.
Dealing with and making use of all that data
That means there’s really no reason for the public sector across Africa not to tap into cloud computing to improve operations. Thanks to technology, we live in an increasingly interconnected environment where individuals, organisations and governments rely on technology for everything from communicating with one another to paying bills.
With all that data available as a result, working in the cloud is an ideal way of keeping it in one centralised place. This makes it easier for the public sector to analyse and visualise it to gain insights that drive more informed decisions, more effective planning and better results. Working on the cloud also means any public service worker, across public safety, justice and defence, can use their devices wherever they are to make use of relevant data and enter new data into the public system. This makes it a much more collaborative process, allowing governments to be more transparent.
Transforming the public sector with the help of the cloud
With cloud computing expanding significantly in Africa, the public sector needs to understand how to work in the cloud optimally and securely, and start moving its operations into this space. That’s why we have partnered with AAPAM for the Roundtable Conference. Delegates attending the conference will help assess and establish the state of the African public sector and propose measures to improve and transform it.
For more information and to register for the event, visit the AAPAM website.
