Problems with Global I.T.

Trends:
Trend 1: 3DPrinting
Part 1:
3D Printers are a part of the next futuristic tools. It can basically be looked at as a teleport pad where
any item can be materialized by having its blue print. "It allows for items,that previously required large,
centralized plants will be produced locally" (Richard, 2013). What this means globally is that, potentially,
those large corporations that have huge infrastructures to produce goods might become nullified.
Instead small businesses could find themselves with the opportunity to compete with just the right
software and blueprints. Businesses along the supply, manufacturing, retailing will have to rethink their
strategies. In terms of South Africa, local companies could use this as a potential competitive edge over
already established companies.
Part 2: Negative Repercussions
Electricity/Cost3D printers require a large amount of electricity. If you were to compare injection molding, which is one
of the processes in manufacturing that deal with plastic, compared to 3D lasers which melt plastic,
research shows that the 3D printer would use 50 to 100 times more electricity(TechRepublic, 2014). MIT
did a similar test where they compared lasers fusing metals together and normal industrial processes
and found out that, once again, 3D printing require 50 to 100 times more electricity. .
Drug Trafficking:
It is stated that chemicals in the form of drugs are able to be created using 3D printers. Lee Cronin, a
professor at the university of Glasgow states that it should be possible to "print the molecules in order,
to create any drug if necessary." (3D Printing, 2013). All that is actually required is a chemical blueprint.
So, drugs do not have to even be imported into the country, they can be printed without any one the
wiser. How does one monitor drug traffic when there is no traffic to monitor. New laws and regulations
would need to be implemented.
Security:
Another issue brought about by 3D printing is security. For instance, a member of a German
lock-picking group, Sportsfreunde Der Sperrtechnik Deutschland e.V, used his 3D printer to create a
key to unlock handcuffs carried by the Dutch police. Startlingly, he was able to measure and reproduce
the key accurately by using nothing more than a photograph of the key hanging from the belt of a police
officer plus some basic math to gauge its size. Afterward, he not only printed out a copy of the key to
test, but also put the model up online for anyone to print. Whats to prevent criminals on the loose from
making such a key for themselves and making sneaky escapes.
Part2: Managed in SA Context

South Africa is already experiencing a shortage on resources for electricity. So if government where for
some reason wanting to use it, they would have to pay additional funds to export such goods. This bring
up another issue of cost, regardless of electricity. "According to the report by Gartner, enterprise-class
3D printers will cost less than $2,000 by 2016" (Bloomfield, 2016). This shows the price is out of the
range of average daily people but medium to large businesses could definitely afford it and gives local
companies the chance to compete globally with 3D Printers.
Trend 2: Digital Currency:
Part1:
As taken from an article, Bitcoin avoids all froms of traditional international wire services (Bitcoin,
2015). The other important fact about bitcoins is that Bitcoins cannot be created out of thin air ie: they
cannot be printed by government. As a result, the value of Bitcoins will most likely rise. Yes, through
history, new currencies have been implemented and their value has dropped ie: Zimbabwian Dollar but
this was due to highinflation that Bitcoin makes impossible (Whelen, 2013)
Bitcoin mining requires some serious hardware specs. At the very least you require high end cpus and
ram, but the main focus is on the GPU. To be one of the top contenders in the mining environment one
might have to purchase a ASIC GPU that could price at about $1.250. (Reiche, 2014). There is nothing
impacting South Africans, that would make it harder for them to mine bitcoins then those overseas. The
reason is that internet speed does not play a huge factor in bitcoin mining. If you are doing some serious
bitcoin mining in a mining pool then you might need a speed of 700 bytes, which is less then a meg.
Nowadays South African Internets range from 2 all the way to 20mb per second.
Part 2: Negative Repercussions
As we know, Bitcoin is an electronic fiat currency that is implemented using cryptogrophy and
peer-to-peer technologies (Kroll, 2013). They are created by being mined ie: gathering numerous
computer algorithms to form a unique block. So a problem immedietly is that the government will be
totally against it. Government try to regulate the flow of money so as to incur a return from taxes.
However, bitcoin is not regulated by anybody. A potential threat is a Goldfinger attack, where an
institution blocks bitcoins transactions in order to disrupt the bitcoin economy (Kroll, 2013). There is
therefore a need for governance, which is being implemented by the developers of the Bitcoin
implementation software. These people are highly respected by the community and their decisions hold
alot of weight (Kroll, 2013).
Volatility:
Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 and therefore is relatively new. As a result, there are only a limited
number of people that own bitcoins. If more begin to purchase bitcoins, the value shifts greatly. This
means that the value of bitcoins are not stable and need to be regularly monitored. It is said that t
Bitcoin is capable of volatility in the form of 10x changes in price versus the U.S. dollar. This can be
attributed to the anxiety people experience over something they dont truely understand and are easily

persuaded by what others have to say. So as a result, average day people cannot bank on their bitcoins
to pay for day to day items, they can only be seen as a risky investment that could be successful.
Security:
We live in a day and age where you can lose your entire life savings from a single hack. Digital currrency
aleviates the problems of keeping money under your matress but at the same time it is intangible and
needs to be kept secured. The problem with Bitcoins is that if you are hacked, then the intruder will
have access to your wallet, alternatively if you allow a third party company to store your bitcoins, then
there is always the potential of them becoming bankrupt, getting hacked themselves or even stealing it
themeslves. The bitcoin market is largely unregulated and hence do not have alot of legal protections
(Lee, 2013).
Part2: Managed in SA Context
There are a series of movements that can take place. Firstly, overseas there is far more developed
laws surrounding digital currencies. South African government needs to firstly adopt those practises and
do one better by improving on the mistakes that currently exist. Otherwise we could be faced with an
issue where people overseas come to South Africa to hack at digital wallets as laws are so vague.
Trend 3: Big data:
Part1:
Big Data will heavily impact most companies. The reason being that there are many factors of
production: human capital , natural resources etc. What big data does is provide information in order to
become more efficient in these areas. As explained in an Ivey Business Journal "become the basis of
competition and growth for individual firms, enhancing productivity and creating significant value for
the world economy" (Mcguire, 2013). This will favour South African companies, especially the smaller
more local ones, if they were to jump on the band and become more efficient with resources available
with the information on hand.
Part 2: Negative Repercussions
Time
One common problem with big data is the overbearing amount of information and the need to
accurately sift through it all. Yes decisions will be more accurate as their are more observations and data
to support a decision made, however, the time taken could be exponential. In actual fact, its not only
the volume of the data, but the actual variety of it. The data is acquired from a variety of sources,
structured and semi structured; emails, text messages, documents and so on (Datastax, 2014). However,
these challenges can be met with more powerful machinery (SAS, 2015).
Freedom
A Ted talk by Kenneth Cukier gave added additional insight into the problems of Big data.

He

mentioned Big Data in the future in relation to the movie Minority Report where there is so much
information on people that people get judged before even carrying out an action. They are judged on
what they might do. This is quite far fetched but with today's technology, it cannot be ruled out as
impossible. Since when did we think that robots were capable of continuous learning. An example is
where a checkers player called Arthur Samuel challenged a computer in a game of checkers, the first
couple of times he won, but each time Arthur one, the PC gathered more data which increased its
prediction of a winning move and eventually Arthur lost to the computer.
Another issue surrounding big data is the assumption that more data will lead to more information.
Bernard Murphy, an engineer with a phd explains that data is only as useful as the level of entropy.
Entropy meaning the lack of predictability. So if the entropy is high, then regardless of the volume of the
data, only certain factors of information can be taken. On the other hand if the entropy is low, then
more information can be gained. He explains that Big Data is only really useful when entropy lies
somewhere in the middle. (Bernard 2015).
Part2: Managed in SA Context
The key to big data is running through large sources of data inorder to give your business knowledge. SA
businesses need to be aware that not all problems are solved by monster pcs but rather a smart
algorithm. ". One colleague, faced with a mountain of data, figured out that he would need a $2-million
computer to analyze it. Instead, King and his graduate students came up with an algorithm within two
hours that would do the same thing in 20 minute" (Jonathon, 2014)

References:
Jonathan, S (2014), Why Big Data is a Big Deal,
http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/03/why-big-data-is-a-big-deal
Mcguire, T, (2012), Why is Big Data the new Competitive Advantage,
http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/why-big-data-is-the-new-competitive-advantage/
Whelan, K, (2013) , So whats so special on Bitcoins,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlwhelan/2013/11/20/so-whats-so-special-about-bitcoin-2/
Richard, A, (2013), 3-D Printing will change the world,
https://hbr.org/2013/03/3-d-printing-will-change-the-world
Bloomfield, A, (2013), Becoming more Affordable
http://mic.com/articles/41111/how-much-does-a-3d-printer-cost-still-expensive-but-becoming-more-af
fordable
3D Printing, (2013), Univercity of Glasglow, http://www.3d-printing.net/tags/university-glasgow

Gilpin, L, (2014), The dark side of 3d printing stuff to watch,

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-dark-side-of-3d-printing-10-things-to-watch/

M, Bernard (2015), The Problem with big data, http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?doc_id=1325456

Datastax, (2014), Big Data Challenges, http://www.datastax.com/big-data-challenges
SAS, (2015), Five Big Data Challenges,
http://www.sas.com/resources/asset/five-big-data-challenges-article.pdf
Lee, T, (2013), 12 Questions about Bitcoin you were too embarressed to ask,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/19/12-questions-you-were-too-emba
rrassed-to-ask-about-bitcoin/
Kroll, j, (2013), The Economics of Bitcoin Mining, or Bitcoin in the Presence of Adversarieshttp,
www.weis2013.econinfosec.org/papers/KrollDaveyFeltenWEIS2013.pdf
Barket, J, (2014), Why is Bitcoin's Value so Volatile
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052014/why-bitcoins-value-so-volatile.asp
Reiche, J, (2014), Bitcoin Mining 101, http://www.maximumpc.com/bitcoin-mining-101/
Bitcoin, (2015), Some Things you need to know, https://bitcoin.org/en/you-need-to-know