President to launch new media, communication and AI policies soon

IN order for Zimbabwe to attain digital sovereignty and stop relying on foreign-owned social media platforms, local universities must take the lead in developing local social networking and media sharing platforms, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere, has said.

He was delivering a public lecture recently at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust)’s 11th Annual International Conference on Communication and Information Science.

He hinted that President Mnangagwa will soon launch new policies on Artificial Intelligence, media and communication to guide the speedy transformation of the sector in keeping with global trends.

“The new Internet world that we live in . . . in the Fourth Industrial Revolution has ensured that we have social media imperialism and this is mainly because as Zimbabweans and as Africans we are not taking the lead to innovate,” said Dr Muswere.

“Necessity is the mother of all inventions, thus universities must take the lead to develop our own social media platforms for us to be able to achieve digital sovereignty as a country.

“The more we expose ourselves to other international social media platforms, the more it affects the way we communicate,” said the minister.

He underlined the dominance of social media platforms in advertising and marketing, and their impact on international trade and called for the development of home-grown social media platforms to safeguard national and African sovereignty.

“The phone, artificial intelligence, broadband and information science have completely transformed the way we live, handle transactions and make decisions as countries and individuals,” said Dr Muswere.

“There is a total shift in marketing from the old print and broadcasting media to social media platforms, which now control and dominate advertising and marketing.

“Social media now dominates international trade and marketing. So, it is very important for researchers and academics to work together to achieve data sovereignty,” he added.

He challenged the print media to evolve in response to advancements in technology and artificial intelligence (AI) or face collapse. He noted with concern that the traditional print media industry was declining rapidly, with sales of newspapers in the country plummeting from over 100 000 to less than 10 000 per day.

Dr Muswere acknowledged the efforts of the Second Republic and President Mnangagwa in promoting technological advancements and innovation financing models to align the country with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“His Excellency, Dr Emmerson Mnangagwa introduced innovation hubs and resourced innovation financing models under the Universal Services Fund bankrolled by Potraz.

“He also launched the new ICT policy and working together under his leadership, we were able to develop the National Broadband Plan,” said Dr Muswere.

“We finalised the new Artificial Intelligence Policy and the new Media and Communication Policy and soon, the President will launch all these policies.

“Sovereignty is no longer defined by physical borders, boundaries and perimeters because disruptive technologies and the utilisation of information science and artificial intelligence have altered the physical perimeters of our borders.

“This conference should champion home-grown solutions because, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the more external countries or institutions collect, retrieve, generate, process and analyse data through the internet economy, the more it affects the decision-making of African countries.”