All the numbers on South Africa’s crisis dashboard are blinking red. The economy is failing to grow and more and more young people find themselves on the outside looking in as education falters and jobs disappear. Energy and transport are in crisis. Governance is floundering as debt mounts and government runs out of money.

Better Choices is a collection by South Africa’s top thinkers on the political economy, providing an unflinching account of the myriad challenges the country faces. The picture that emerges is of a nation on the brink of a catastrophic slide into failure unless better, if tough, policy choices are made. As stark as these problems are, their solutions are tantalisingly close at hand. The chapters in this book outline exactly the solutions – those ‘better choices’– that need to be made by leadership to alter the country’s bleak trajectory.

South Africa cannot talk its way out of trouble. Key to success is removing the sources of friction – the red tape, over-regulation and rents – that slow down investment. This is only possible if a more effective, focused government acts decisively.

Compiled by The Brenthurst Foundation, Africa’s leading think tank on economic development, Better Choices is for those who want to build a positive, inclusive future for South Africa.

Closing the Gap is an accessible overview of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and the impact it is set to have on various sectors in South Africa and Africa. It explores the previous industrial revolutions that have led up to this point and outlines South Africa’s position been through each one.

With a focus on artificial intelligence as a core concept in understanding the 4IR, this book uses familiar concepts to explain artificial intelligence, how it works and how it can be used in banking, mining, medicine and many other fields.

Written from an African perspective, Closing the Gap addresses the challenges and fears around the 4IR by pointing to the opportunities presented by new technologies and outlining some of the challenges and successes to date

Futureproof your business, career and family with these invaluable insights. This is an essential compendium of trends for anyone who is anxious or excited about thriving in the uncertain decade ahead. Along with accompanying actionable insights to pre-empt and solve the challenges and problems they represent to the serious South African with business, career and family interests to look after, it's a must-have.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an immeasurable effect on the world and redefined for us what is truly important. We’re witnessing a reversion to the basics of Maslow’s hierarchy as we find ourselves seeking to safeguard our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing. Why? Because we no longer have the luxury of certainty.

For generations, we’ve grown up believing that studying for a defined career and securing a job would guarantee our future. This 'essential' and predictable sequence marked us as productive members of society. But is our society even a healthy one? Are we heading in the right direction or have we been blinded by collective greed and delusion? How can we justify such inequality and environmental degradation in the world? These were questions being asked even before Covid struck – and now the pandemic has accelerated a desire for change. For all the stress and disruption Covid has caused, we now have a gilt-edged opportunity to change things for the better. Now is the time for each of us to cultivate new skills, qualities and characteristics to bring about the collective future we want.

FutureNEXT plots a new way forward by combining the accessible thinking of future strategist John Sanei with the deeply thought economic and philosophical principles of Dr Iraj Abedian. The result is a book about the things we need to rethink so that we may step confidently into the future. About the new roles and responsibilities we will each have as consumers, employees, employers, entrepreneurs and executives. And ultimately about reimagining a more harmonious, systemically fair and sustainable, yet prosperous world.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is upending life, work, and play as we know it … and it’s only just getting started. The rise of AI is a milestone on par with the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, and the creation of the internet. In short, AI is going to change everything. For some, that’s an exciting prospect. For others, it’s terrifying. However you feel about AI, there’s no escaping it, whether you’re in a global metropolis or a farmer in rural KwaZulu-Natal.

Dr Mark Nasila has been watching AI’s ascent for over a decade, studying its effects on everything from agriculture and aviation to healthcare, education, entertainment, crime prevention, energy management, policy creation, finance, and anything in between, and applying them to his role at one of South Africa’s most successful financial institutions, First National Bank, a division of FirstRand Group.

African Artificial Intelligence is a comprehensive and fascinating journey, tracing the rise of AI and its evolution into the emerging technology underpinning all others – from connected devices and smart chatbots to the metaverse. Mark combines unexpected use cases and tales of cutting-edge innovation with a unique and potent argument: harnessing AI to solve Africa’s problems requires embracing it from an African perspective.

African nations can’t afford to simply import AI solutions from afar. Instead, Mark contends, they need to rework, remix, and refine AI so it’s able to meet uniquely African challenges in uniquely African ways, and to take advantage of the once-in-a-generation opportunity AI represents for every industry, sector, and person, everywhere.

Industrial psychologist and award-winning business coach Kathi Hyde and her clients have proven that you can start over or step up, even in hard times, to build a business that achieves the results you deserve, brings out the best and allows you to live life well.

Kathi’s passion to help small businesses succeed to international standards (irrespective of where they find themselves geographically) and her love for the people who start and run them, have helped lead her clients to record success, game-changing personal growth, contentment, and real results time and again. Using vignettes of her own story as a backdrop, Kathi shares proven step-by-step strategies to help existing and new business owners achieve the same results – no matter where they are in their life or business journey.

This book considers both the business owner and the business. Part One prepares readers mentally and emotionally to overcome their setbacks and take on the mantle of being a business owner. It also helps them work out the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of starting or growing their business. Part Two provides the practical business skills and know-how to build a profitable, resilient and rewarding business that delivers.

Based on sound business principles and practices, and packed with wisdom, anecdotes, strategies, practical examples, motivation, and the insight and experience gained from Kathi’s more than 30-year involvement with business across a range of industries in developed and developing countries, Peace By Piece is a coach-come-business-school in a book. It’ll help readers create peace from the pieces and guide them in laying the foundations of a fulfilling business that serves them and those they love and serve.

This is a core text for students of consumer or buyer behaviour. It looks at the subject from a psychological perspective and psychological themes that cross different areas - such as personality patterns and lifestyle effects on shopping behaviour. The book is student-friendly and avoids jargon. At the end of each chapter there is an annotated further reading list and a selection of questions for discussion.

'A dazzling history of the future – Hamish McRae has given us a tour de force' - Tim Harford _______________ A bold and illuminating vision of the future, from one of Europe’s foremost speakers on global trends in economics, business and society What will the world look like in 2050? How will complex forces of change – demography, the environment, finance, technology and ideas about governance – affect our global society? And how, with so many unknowns, should we think about the future? One of Europe’s foremost voices on global trends in economics, business and society, Hamish McRae takes us on an exhilarating journey through the next thirty years. Drawing on decades of research, and combining economic judgement with historical perspective, Hamish weighs up the opportunities and dangers we face, analysing the economic tectonic plates of the past and present in order to help us chart a map of the future. A bold and vital vision of our planet, The World in 2050 is an essential projection for anyone worried about what the future holds. For if we understand how our world is changing, we will be in a better position to secure our future in the decades to come.

The world is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, more fragmented and further away from the more equal and equitable iteration imagined in 2015 when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceptualised. As we hurtle, at seemingly lightning speed, towards the 2030 deadline to achieve these goals, the urgency is palpable. Although we have certainly strayed further away from the targets, there is still time to act in order to ensure that we inch closer to this vision.

Tshilidzi Marwala paints a stark, and often grim, picture of our current context – one defined by monumental setbacks in the SDGs. Yet, as he carves out each developmental goal and its implications, it is apparent that there are tangible solutions that can be implemented, now. Tshilidzi’s assertion that now is the time to act is backed by intricate and actionable data with a simple mission statement: we must heal the future.

He offers a new narrative that addresses how we can translate the latent potential that exists through technology, innovation and new approaches to leadership and policy-making, to deal with, among others, poverty eradication, joblessness, an education system in crisis, declining economies and food insecurity.

Heal our World is a deep-dive into the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly relating to the African context, and looks toward securing a future in which our divisions are blurred, and our goals almost seem in reach again.

Databook of Surface Modification Additives, Second Edition contains data on ten groups of additives, including anti-scratch and mar-preventing additives, additives for surface tension reduction and wetting, hydrophobization additives, gloss enhancement and surface matting additives, additives for the formation of tack-free surface and tackifiers, and stain inhibiting additives. The information on each is divided into five sections, including General Information, Physical-Chemical Properties, Health and Safety, Ecological Properties, and Use and Performance. This data is provided for approximately 360 of the most important surface modification additives produced and used today. This databook will be an extremely useful resource for engineers, researchers and technicians interested in using additives to modify and improve the surface properties of materials.

This timely book sets out how ordinary citizens can reform our broken economy.

Politicians curry favour with interest groups such as trade unions, public service workers, teachers and the unemployed, instead of serving the general public. Trade unions exploit labour laws to get benefits for their members without increasing productivity. Teachers enjoy sheltered employment without producing properly qualified learners. Formal employees abuse the bargaining-council system to push up labour costs imposed on employers and employees outside the system. Notoriously unproductive “public servants” enjoy above-market salaries in a growing sector that creates little to no economic value. Unemployed people, of whom there are 11 million, form the bedrock of our community of 18 million recipients of welfare grants. They produce nothing in return. The glue holding together all these forms of rent-seeking, is centralised government power, undergirded by laws and government spending.

The author highlights that the system of rent-seeking has damaged moral fabric in this country, eating at it like a virus. It does not let go, because it contains the seed of destruction of any argument deployed towards dismantling it. Rent-seeking is embarked upon – invariably almost – in the name of some noble cause or other. And noble causes demand that we be on the right side of them, or risk being tainted as unfair, oppressive, right-wing or simply bad.

Who in their right mind doesn’t want to protect workers against unemployment or exploitation, advance previously disadvantaged black citizens, improve the matric pass rate, help the poor with housing and money, build a strong public service?

Succinct and understandable, this book is a step-by-step guide to the mathematics and construction of electrical load forecasting models. Written by one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, Electrical Load Forecasting provides a brief discussion of algorithms, their advantages and disadvantages and when they are best utilized. The book begins with a good description of the basic theory and models needed to truly understand how the models are prepared so that they are not just blindly plugging and chugging numbers. This is followed by a clear and rigorous exposition of the statistical techniques and algorithms such as regression, neural networks, fuzzy logic, and expert systems. The book is also supported by an online computer program that allows readers to construct, validate, and run short and long term models.

The highly prized ability to make financial plans with some certainty about the futurecomes fromthe core fields of economics. In recent years the availability of more data, analytical tools of greater precision, and "ex post" studies of business decisions have increased demand for information about economic forecasting. Volumes 2A and 2B, which follows Nobel laureate Clive Granger's Volume 1 (2006), concentrate on two major subjects. Volume 2Acovers innovations in methodologies, specifically macroforecasting and forecasting financial variables. Volume 2Binvestigates commercial applications, with sections on forecasters' objectives and methodologies. Experts provide surveys of a large range of literaturescattered acrossappliedand theoretical statistics journals as well aseconometrics and empirical economics journals. "The Handbook of Economic Forecasting" Volumes 2A and 2Bprovide a unique compilation of chapters giving a coherent overview of forecasting theory and applications in one place and with up-to-date accounts of all major conceptual issues.
Focuses on innovation in economic forecasting via industry applicationsPresents coherent summaries of subjects in economic forecasting that stretch from methodologies to applicationsMakes details about economic forecasting accessible to scholars in fields outside economics"

This book examines the main causes of financial instability and highlights that, with the exception of wars and pandemics, the financial system is the source of the crisis, not just a means of spreading it, as most mainstream experts believe. Based on the following findings, the innovative sections of this book provide academics and policymakers with important and practical knowledge: because negative shifts in the financial system precede recessions, financial indicators can predict the onset of a crisis much earlier than real variables; the proposed recession forecasting model can predict the emergence of the crisis a month in advance. When the economy's sensitivity to the financial system is reduced, there will be only modest negative economic growth and no true recessions.

A "quick look up guide," Electricity Cost Modeling Calculations places the relevant formulae and calculations at the reader's finger tips. In this book, theories are explained in a nutshell and then the calculation is presented and solved in an illustrated, step-by-step fashion. A valuable guide for new engineers, economists (or forecasters), regulators, and policy makers who want to further develop their knowledge of best practice calculations techniques or experienced practitioners (and even managers) who desire to acquire more useful tips, this book offers expert advice for using such cost models to determine optimally-sized distribution systems and optimally-structured power supplying entities. In other words, this book provides an Everything-that-you-want-to-know-about-cost-modelling-for-electric-utilities (but were afraid to ask) approach to modelling the cost of supplying electricity. In addition, the author covers the concept of multiproduct and multistage cost functions, which are appropriate in modelling the cost of supplying electricity. The author has done all the heavy number-crunching, and provides the reader with real-world, practical examples of how to properly quantify the costs associated with providing electric service, thus increasing the accuracy of the results and support for the policy initiatives required to ensure the competitiveness of the power suppliers in this new world in which we are living. The principles contained herein could be employed to assist in the determination of the cost-minimizing amount of output (i.e., electricity), which could then be used to determine whether a merger between two entities makes sense (i.e., would increase profitability). Other examples abound: public regulatory commissions also need help in determining whether mergers (or divestitures) are welfare-enhancing or not; ratemaking policies depend on costs and properly determining the costs of supplying electric (or gas, water, and local telephone) service. Policy makers, too, can benefit in terms of optimal market structure; after all, the premise of deregulation of the electric industry was predicated on the idea that generation could be deregulated. Unfortunately, the economies of vertical integration between the generation.