The potential presented by digitalisation means could evoke a different conversation about Africa and businesses trading on the continent into the next decade, according to industry-driven discussion at the 2016 ITWeb Digital Economy Summit.

Mpumi Nhlapo, Head of Demand Management at T-Systems South Africa said Africa's promise is supported by expected changes to the continents profile.

"The opportunity for digitalisation means that we can have a different conversion in less than ten years time. We could be talking about Africa emerging as the new China and a staging ground, the launch of a company for the space tourism industry, robotics helping to eradicate ebola and so forth. There is an opportunity with digitalisation to really change the momentum in terms of wt]here the continent is going and the conversations around growth and development in Africa. Estimates are that by 2025 population numbers around Africa will be reaching about one billion people with nearly four billion connected devices, six hundred million internet users and about sixty-five percent mobile penetration into the market."

Nhlapo added that internet based businesses will triple to reach about 7% on the continent leading up to 2025.

Lee Naik, MD of Accenture Digital offered advice as to how attendees could make the most of the latent digital opportunity. "The world is becoming intrinsically digital and what that means is that on a larger perspective the world is becoming more and more connected. One example of this is the number of smartphones or even IoT. Gartner and the IDC will talk about the fact that there will be in excess of 50 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020 and over two hundred billion sensors connected. As we get into this level of connectedness something has to change. Our organisations have to ask what we will do to extract value from these connections."

Naik believes businesses will have to explore partnerships in order to keep up. "You need to partner with VCs in Cape Town, you need to partner with the JCSE in Braamfontein, with Tshwane Metro, with The Technology Innovation Agency whoever it may be. We have 54 hubs in South Africa and over 340 in the rest of Africa that drive incubation. Why don't you partner with them? Why are you going on your own? We do too much by ourselves."