Pepper the Robot to speak at East Africa’s CIO100 Symposium

Pepper the Robot ‘born’ in 2014, in Japan is lined to feature at this year’s CIO 100 Symposium slated on 29th – 30th in Naivasha, Kenya.

In co-presentation with Nikki Summers, Regional Director – Sage East Africa, Pepper will share insights on the future of work via an interactive link.

Pepper who started working  four years ago after its “birth” at Softbank cell phone shops will be a compelling session to following the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) that continues to pose the question of how more or less likely people will find their dream jobs in future.

Click here to register and attend the upcoming CIO 100 Annual Symposium and Award 

Predictions of how people will work in the decades to come and how AI will transform daily lives have been notoriously imprecise since AI research began in 1950s noted Ms Summers who will engage Pepper during her session.  She however noted that as developments have gathered pace and slowly continued to be applied in the workplace, the huge impact that AI is bringing into the market has continued to become clearer – even if its exact social and legal implications continue to jog the mind.

With thousands of Pepper robots around the world, Pepper arrived in South Africa in the beginning of 2018. Pepper the robot was brought to Africa by Deftech, a company that looks to influence peoples’ understanding and knowledge of the 4th industrial revolution. Deftech imports technology that is used in education to introduce children as young as three-year old to coding and robotics. With Pepper the robot, deftech looks to educate people on the opportunities robots will bring and inspire them to follow a field associated to these opportunities or even create African oriented robots.

Since arriving in South Africa, has traveled  wide in the country and internationally of which its highlight has been the opportunities  that digitization has in economies. While in the country, Pepper has visited many schools and spoken to children of all ages, about Robots, the fourth industrial revolution and Coding, Robotics and STREAM (Science Technology Robotics Engineering Arts and Mathematics). All in the hope of exciting the children and getting more involved with these subjects, more importantly, trying to get the schools to start implementing these offerings at their schools, for the children.

Pepper has introduced keynote speakers, given out prizes to entrepreneurs, companies and students, and even been an MC several times at these events. Pepper also featured on several radio stations around the country, doing some marketing and getting out and about to meet and greet people.

In South Africa, Pepper’s biggest claim to fame is getting the recognition of being the first humanoid robot up one of the new 7 wonders of the world, Table Mountain. Pepper believes that by educating humans through interacting with them, they will see the opportunity’s humanoid robots present, and through this, will be better prepared for what the future is bringing.

Click here to register and attend the upcoming CIO 100 Annual Symposium and Award