On 18 July 2024, I was on a panel on “Cloud Native Strategies for Mauritian Businesses” during Developers Conference 2024 organised by the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community at the Caudan Arts Centre.
My other panel members were Dawid van der Merwe, Solutions Architect at SUSE, Viv Padayatchy, Managing Director of Cybernaptics, Delphine Bissessur, Head of Digital at a Mauritian bank, Dhaneshwar Damry, Founder & CEO of Bhumishq and the panel was moderated by Ish Sookun, one of the co-organisers, together with Jochen Kirstätter, of Developers Conference 2024.
I spoke about the most significant technological advancements that Mauritius needs to focus on in the next five years to stay competitive. While I am in favour of always pursuing the latest trends, I also understand, given my experience in policy-making, that the fundamentals need to be right for a country to prosper. There are key areas where the education system in Mauritius needs to evolve to better prepare students for the demands of the IT industry. And, as a whole, the population needs to become more innovative. This is not only a question of policy.
I also shared some thoughts about whether Mauritius has the potential to position itself as a major cloud-native expert and solutions provider to African companies in the coming years. I think Mauritius has an important role to play but we will have to better understand the African countries, their people and the problems that need to be solved.