Technology design and programming

TIANG MOABELO

Tiang is an innovative entrepreneur and founder of LoadALot, a disruptive techenabled startup in the moving and logistics industry.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the exciting buzz word of the 21st century, yet a widely-held concern is that this new technology will completely replace employees in the workplace.

What is more alarming is that a university degree doesn’t guarantee your employment against this technology. To avoid the extinction of workers, employees will have to reskill and learn to collaborate with new technology.

Technology design and programming

Siri, Alexa, your Spotify suggestion playlist and image recognition devices have one thing in common: artificial intelligence (AI). They are all, in one way or another, performing the same tasks that my brain can perform, but faster. They recognise speech and reply in speech, they predict the next possible song I might like or recognise images like my brain would.

With AI we attempt to reproduce the functions of the brain using data and computer programming. The code (or set of computer instructions) can vary from a simple Excel VBA script to a more complex Python script. What is encouraging is that coding has been developing for decades and many instructors around the world have developed intuitive courses that can help anyone at any level of coding to either start or improve their level of coding.

How we used tech to transform the transport market

Through LoadALot, we used technology to improve the customer experience and disrupt the traditional model of moving and logistics. We developed an AI image recognition web-app. Customers use the app to take a photo of the items they would need LoadALot to transport and receive an instant quote based on it. The app, through machine learning, recognises these furniture items and instantly compiles a quote in the back-end in real time to display a dynamic price and a booking calendar to customers. This is both time and cost saving for the customer as they have full control of how much they will have to pay for the service. This is also seen as a step towards personalising the experience for the customer. We used detailled customer feedback, data and patterns to tailor the function and outcome of the web-app.

Read up on the emerging tech being used in your field, and use your free time to learn it.

SOME THINGS YOU CAN DO:

1. Upskill yourself:

Coding is fast becoming a critical skill, especially considering the direction in which humanity is evolving. A basic understanding of coding can go a long way in any career. Many coding courses can be found on platforms such as Coursera and Udemy. In whichever career you find yourself, coding might just have a purpose for you – do some research to find exactly which language might be useful in your industry. Even if it just means that you can assist with upgrading the website of the company you work for, it offers a unique selling point on your CV that few other candidates might have.

2. What new tech is being used in your field?

Companies are always looking for fresh talent that already know the ins and outs of new technology. Read up on the emerging tech being used in your field, and use your free time to learn it. 3D and 4D printing and modelling, for example, is being used in more and more industries – so try to teach yourself to use Blender software, or save up and buy Autodesk Maya.

3. Know the basics, and do your research.

When you know nothing about a subject, you will never be able to properly delegate it. Let’s say you are in charge of having a new software product developed. The developer comes in for a meeting and realises that nobody in your team knows what she is talking about – she proceeds to explain that because of “gibberish,” the project will take a year to complete, at a rate equivalent to what you will hopefully earn in a lifetime. You accept, not knowing that the project could actually have been done in one month. But, what if you had known something about the technicalities of what you were asking to be done? Even when you do not have to touch code for your projects, it is worth it to know the basics – it can mean the difference between somebody taking advantage of your naivety and you knowing to decline their offer.

4. Keep up.

A big thing in many workplaces currently is upskilling, and the skills needed often involve technology. The fact is, most of the workforce is not up to date with technology, or the best uses thereof – people do not know, for example, the importance of secure passwords or how to back up their work. This might sound unbelievable to you, but it might just be you in 10 years, struggling to use the overcomplicated piece of future tech that your company has brought in. Keep up to date with tech, even if it means doing research in your own time – YouTube tutorials, anyone?