Digital inclusivity
GENDER, poverty, and rural and maritime communities are at risk of being further marginalised if we allow a technology-led approach to the digital world without a national cross-ministry digital strategy that is focused on citizen and business experience.
If not addressed strategically, the current gender issues will intensify having a near exponential negative impact on women in the small, medium, and micro industries.
The risk of women falling further behind is all too real. Building a much bandied about digital economy across the 30 or so ministries, nearly 40 agencies, SMEs, NGOs, and the private sector is a daunting challenge. Is finance the only challenge for Fiji? Social? Who do we leave out, who to include in the drive for inclusivity and sustainability.
Imagine a mother sitting by the SuvaNadi highway selling her farm produce.
She’s on her smart phone organising for someone to mind her stall for the day looking out for the next bus to take her into Suva then another that will take her to the CWM hospital for long overdue treatment. She unclicks her worn out money purse and does a mental calculation on how she needs to budget her day, what meals she has packed or will have to miss out on.
Did her daughter make it to the stall? In Suva mother finds herself on a disorganized, haphazard waiting list. Hours of waiting. She considers herself lucky. Others were turned away to return another day. Somebody should have told them. The specialist they wanted to see had been delayed at Navua Hospital.
They can’t find her medical records. She’d visited Navua months ago where some of her medical details are filed. She got to the front of the queue, only to be told by frustrated and dispirited hospital staff that she’d have to go to Navua or arrange to have her records transferred. Untreated,
she has to get back to her stall now. Two buses. Now imagine this. Mother sitting on the side of the highway selling her produce.
She gets on the same smartphone. Seeks out a time slot, not necessarily an appointment, has a good idea of when to arrive at CWM to see the specialist she needs to visit. In the process she discovers a timeslot and specialist at Navua which is closer to her and much cheaper having to catch only the one direct bus. And it’s very likely she’d be back in time for her daughter to only have missed a couple of classes.
On arrival at Navua Hospital her digitised medical records are already cued up detailing her prior and next treatment. Hospital staff are not as stressed and frustrated and the whole experience is quite pleasant. She had authorised access to her records, specialist reports, her personal details, and didn’t have to go through the “Baap ke Naam” ritual for the hundredth time. She did have to search multiple sites to help co-ordinate her visit as did the hospital staff. Its better than the old way, better than nothing. And not being fluent and efficient in English she appreciated being able to do all this in her own language.
Digitisation can help with a better citizens experience. Its complex to deliver with significant planning and development of capability behind the scenes. It will take time.
Now let’s talk digitalization and enabling the digital economy. Her smart phone is enabled to access information. The hospital accesses necessary information within their own environments. Forms are 90 per cent pre-filled from relevant sources of data.
Informed services and treatments mean faster and more efficient patient-friendly processing taking into consideration medical staff shortages, staff rosters and other resource issues. Prescription details are sent to her smartphone.
She’s prompted to check availability and price of medicines at one or more pharmacies. Through direct prescription transfer and online payment pharmacies have her prescription filled and ready for pickup. She will get reminders of repeat scripts and treatment plans.
On analysis of her data, she is provided with guidance on preventative action based on similar profiles.
Will digitalization and digital economy Success escape us? Is it simple, farfetched? Neither. Absolutely not. But you may question if any developed nation had gone to that level of sophistication, so how can little old Fiji?
First, we don’t have the many challenges that come with having vast and complex multi-vendor, multi-operator networks and infrastructure, not as many as those giant developed nations which are in many cases being held back with legacy implementations.
Fiji is relatively light in its entrenchment of legacy in that regard. And we don’t have the population of those nations. Nowhere near the tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people. We have one of the highest penetration rates of mobile technology. We will soon have two submarine cables connecting us to the rest of the world.
So, what do we need? We need a vision, a whole-of nation digital transformation strategy, and a roadmap to the vision. Most of all we need to transform our people to thinking digital beyond devices and social media.
We need to educate and upskill as a nation from the skyline offices of Suva to the marginalised folk in the villages, settlements, farms, and roadside markets. This must be a business and process driven initiative.
And it’s not limited to health. We need to have a deep understanding of our citizens needs. We need to start now to be in time so that little girl by the roadside doesn’t have to suffer her mother’s difficulties.
Naleen Nageshwar is a data and digital strategy consultant. A Fijian citizen currently based in Sydney, he runs his own consulting practice Data4Digital and is managing partner Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific for AlphaZetta Data Science and Analytics Consulting.
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Mere Tamani inside her shop at the YWCA Building in Suva.
Ms Tamani worked at Farah Garments for five years before resigning to join National Uniforms in 1997.
As soon as she started work there, she bought her first sewing machine, a Juki industrial electric one.
“I was working at National Uniforms until 2009 when a friend of mine told me that I would earn more if I had my own tailoring business.
“She had a secondhand clothing stall at the old
Suva Flea Market and she persuaded me to come to start operating at her stall.
“We worked like that until I was able to open my own Suva Flea Market stall in 2015.”
Business for Ms Tamani was thriving until the Suva Flea Market fire in 2020 which destroyed not only the stall, but her machines and all her other sewing accessories.
“When the fire happened, I had to start all over again.
“Luckily, one of my friends recommended a stall at the YWCA building so I was able to rent a stall here.
“I had to buy all my materials again but luckily I still had that Juki machine I bought in 1997 at home.”
Walking into Ms Tamani’s stall at level two of the YWCA building near Sukuna Park, you will find her engrossed in her work, making sure customers’ orders are ready on time.
She said what made her different from most tailors was that she was able to do last-minute orders.
Ms Tamani said if a customer walked in in the morning with an order that needed to be ready by that same afternoon, she would do everything to have it ready by that afternoon.
“This business has helped and my husband in supporting our family.
“I love sewing and I have never once thought of going into another profession.
“This is what I am passionate about and my advice to other people out there is to find something that you’re passionate about and work hard at it.”