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In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, opportunities to harness technology to achieve business goals are aplenty, even in sectors like mining. At the heart of Debswana’s efforts to modernize its mining operations is the team led by Molemisi Sechaba, the Head of Information Management at Debswana.
Under his stewardship, the company has embarked on bold, technology-driven initiatives that are redefining what it means to operate a 21st-century mine, while also prioritizing people, partnerships, and purpose.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Sechaba offers deep insights into Debswana’s smart mining strategy, from deploying private LTE networks and predictive maintenance systems to preparing for an AI-powered future. He speaks candidly about the challenges of cybersecurity, the importance of operational readiness, and the delicate balance between automation and job preservation. He also explains how Debswana’s approach is not about technology for its own sake, but about solving real problems, building resilience, and creating long-term national value.
What are your day-to-day responsibilities as Head of Information Management at Debswana?
At Debswana, we have the Group ExCo, which is the leadership of the organisation, and then we have heads of department that report to the Group ExCo. A typical day consists of figuring out how we can leverage technology to solve each department’s problems.
I also keep in touch with developments in the information and technology space, and do this through reading material from IT research companies to understand what the latest developments are.
Keeping in touch with the team is also a vital function of my work as I get to have an understanding of what our people are working on, what the key projects are that are occupying their time and any support that I can offer.
We also want to know the status of our infrastructure and keep an eye out on any risks that we are seeing and how to address them. Typically once a week, we would have a balanced scorecard where we are checking key metrics.
Please share more on the smart mining project that Debswana embarked on in partnership with Huawei and Abaricom
We started the journey in 2020 and have always understood that for us to be a digital enterprise where data is the engine that fuels our growth, we will need to have a robust network platform.
We used to have challenges in our pits with network connectivity when we were using resident radio networks in our operations in Jwaneng, Letlhakane and Damtshaa mines. And so we went on a journey to look at how we can deploy a very robust network capability that would power the assets that we have like our trucks in the pit, including their safety systems and applications.
So we looked at different technologies and ultimately settled for the LTE solution. At that point we believed Huawei were providing the best solution and as part of our economic empowerment agenda and after a rigorous selection process, we also selected Abaricom who would partner with Huawei for the project.
The idea was that the Huawei team would be supported by the Abaricom team, but COVID hit, and we did not have the luxury of bringing the Huawei team in. So the Huawei team had to work with the Abaricom team remotely and the Abaricom team did all the installations. I'm very proud of that because it shows that Botswana companies are also capable of such large scale projects.
But the vision has always been to provide a robust network where everything floats and is a core part of everything else that we did subsequently, technology-wise. For example, we now have a totally automated drill rig in our Orapa operation, which is operated by someone in an office.
We have platforms such as predictive maintenance where we're getting telemetry data from our trucks, our plants, and are able to use sensors to provide insights into the lifespan of our equipment. The advantage of this is that, if you are able to predict when a downtime is expected rather than when it happens, the cost is so much more optimized, so we have seen a huge improvement on our maintenance and repair costs.
However, the most important thing is that now we have got an almost real time view of the mines’ value chain. We are able to get insights that allow people that need to make decisions to do so on a timely basis backed and informed by data.
What other aspects had to be considered in the implementation of the smart mining project?
We also had to consider change management and operational readiness that comes with such a project because you want to bring the people along, who are the most important element.
For example, our truck drivers are used to working with a certain piece of equipment, our technicians are also used to working on certain equipment, and when you start having a different mechanism, how do you ensure everyone is comfortable with the change.
Also, we were not starting on a greenfield and had an installation base already. So now we had to make a consideration for how we migrate to a different technology while causing minimal disruption and downtime.
Remember that we run a 24 hour operation so you need to make sure that whatever you do, you do not impede production, so the planning has to be quite meticulous. Working with the mining and engineering teams, we always had to have a rollback plan and ensure that at the end of the day, the change was as smooth as possible.
How did you balance between boosting operations via the deployment of the project but also mitigating the security risks that come with having such a widely connected mining operation?
At around the same time that we started the LTE journey, we also embarked on a cyber strategy. The first thing that we did was assess our posture not only from a maturity perspective, but also from what is the installation base, so that we can articulate what capabilities we need to be able to serve.
As an example, we identify that we need a security operations centre and can check ourselves against standards such as ISO 27001 and NIST. So now we have capabilities that can detect and prevent any incidents.
But early on, we realised that you can have the most robust cybersecurity strategy, but people are going to be the weakest link in the chain. So we embarked on a huge exercise around orienting our people around what is cybersecurity, what role they needed to play, and what are some of the things that they needed to do to not fall victim.
For example, we started sending out phishing campaigns to show what a typical phishing e-mail could look like, and the response has been great. From the early days, you were getting quite a high number of people clicking on these links, but nowadays, on average, we have maybe two or three people across an employee base of 4000, so we've come a long way.
We have also realized that it's going to take a lot of collaboration to do cybersecurity right. We have a memorandum of understanding with BOCRA as an example, where they are monitoring some of the infrastructure in the country.
We also believe that cyber hygiene is extremely important, so our controls around vulnerability management, access controls, and other things are to ensure that at any given moment in time, we have a resilient and solid posture.
We also know that cybersecurity is a moving target. Some attackers out there can exploit a vulnerability because of an old user account that you did not see. We also take cognizance of the impact of AI in particular, where bad actors can use the same good capabilities that we've come to like about AI to bridge into our systems.
There are also the technical preventive mechanisms that we've put in place, where there is the ongoing understanding of the cyber landscape and that there is also a business continuity plan in the event that one of our critical systems is disabled for whatever reason.
Speaking of artificial intelligence, how are you and the team thinking about ways to leverage emerging technologies like AI in your operations?
When we embarked on the future connected mine project, we made sure that we understood what it is that we needed. We wanted to look at what we call future smart sustainability, where we wanted to establish our appetite for exploring transformational business opportunities and one of those goals was to fully detach humans from operational areas.
But we also want to make sure that we do not bring technology for the sake of bringing it. The reason why we spend a good amount of time on the predictive monitoring solution is that we believe that there is a value in that we can account for repair and maintenance costs.
And then we have got sensors and an IoT framework where we're able to get sensor data to a cloud platform that can then be visualized, and we're able to pick anomalies as they happen.
So although there are so many emerging technologies including AI, at the end of the day, we ask ourselves, what is their value addition?
The primary vision must be where the value is. We are not looking at technologies which are looking for a problem to solve, but rather, those which address pain points that we already have.
How important have partnerships been in this journey?
We have a plethora of partners, both local and international. As an example, we heavily use Microsoft products and have started our cloud migration journey via Microsoft Azure.
There is also Huawei, which is supplying us with LTE. We also have local partners such as BTC, DimensionData, BrightLabs, and others whose partnerships we take great pride in. We have set ourselves a target of creating 20,000 jobs, and I think we have already achieved that target. We want our fellow citizens to be part of the supply chain that we have created, so in terms of partnerships, we go for the best.
But we are always cognizant that we need to transfer these skills into the country and I'm glad that in this regard, Botswana companies have stepped up. We are using a number of Botswana companies in our core production areas.
We are also partnering with the likes of BAC in terms of influencing curricula and making sure that we create a workforce that is ready for the market through programs in business, analytics and data science.
You can see that those students are ready because they were just here in the last cohort that finished in June. They're brilliant people and that is why I am so excited about the future.
In addition to emphasizing curricula, we are also attaching them at an earlier stage. So they come in at year one, again at year two, and also at year three, rather than them just coming at year three and four.
We also want to upskill our internal teams and have already sent a number of our employees to BOCRA as an example, so that they can improve their skills in cybersecurity.
We also upskill people on emerging technologies because there is nothing that says a high school dropout cannot do a certificate in cybersecurity just because they probably failed English or Setswana. They may have gotten the one grade that shows their predisposition to a particular path maybe in tech and sciences.
So we want to really close the digital gap. We want to make sure that we reach out to those underserved communities, particularly in our areas of influence. We do robotics school sessions once a year whereby our teams go out and engage with primary school students.
We are also heavily investing in hackathons, for example, just so that we can also influence the tech startup landscape, and make sure that our young people are able to participate more in the supply value chain I talked about earlier.
How do you balance between deploying technology whilst also ensuring that people do not have a concern that it might perhaps replace them?
In every initiative that we embark on here, we ask ourselves a series of questions. What is the value at play? What work is required? What is the impact on the worker? So there is a playbook that we use.
The reality is that as the technology landscape changes, some jobs are disappearing, but others are also coming up. For example, I mentioned earlier that we have a drill automation program in place. You used to have a drill operator that was operating this machine right in the pit,and now you have a new role of a drill controller that is now able to operate seven drills at the same time. So the role of drill operator will eventually disappear, but new roles will emerge.
We know the outsized role that we play in our local economy and are very cognizant around our contribution to employment and we are always very careful that whatever we do, we do not bring that contribution into disrepute.
When we are introducing new technology, the first thing that we do is to train people for newer roles that are coming up. As a result, people are now starting to see that at the end of the day, technology that we deploy brings in a net positive impact.
In terms of technology deployment, is there a particular framework that your team uses to ensure that you get the most value?
The technology question is always near the last thing that we think about. We think about the problem that we're looking to solve first, and the business capability that is required.
To be able to bring value, we have what we call a value management framework where we take all these initiatives through a process where we first test what it is actually that we are trying to solve for.
And then when we have the technology conversation, it's about the value that would be added in the business case. Part of the value management framework is operational readiness because bringing people along means ensuring that we have covered the issues of culture, and acclimating people to the new ways of working.
What we do as the technology team is that on an ongoing basis, we test some of these technologies on a small scale and take it from there. From time to time, we also engage with the likes of Microsoft, SAP, and Gartner to say that we have this problem, what do you think would be the most appropriate technology to use?
It's a multifaceted process that gives us the best path to value. One of the things that we have set for ourselves is that there will always be two paths to value. The first one is to optimize the current operation, and the second part is how to develop new business models in addition to expanding our new projects.
How do we actually do things that we have never done before? How do we partner with external systems and entities? We have a good understanding of the data space, data governance, data science, and data engineering, but how do you commoditize that and be able to sell it to the market? Figuring that out is a constantly ongoing process.
Technology is fast-moving, and what might be “emerging” today might be replaced by something else within 3-5 years. How do you ensure that you stay up to date?
Technology is going to evolve to the point where we are going to have things such as a connected worker, and we see AI and robotics being an integral part of where we are going.
We tend to underestimate what we can do in 10 years, but hugely overestimate what we can do in a year. These things take time but eventually, you're going to see a scenario where by and large, mining is autonomous.
We are working on making sure that when we adopt these technologies, and that they make business sense for Botswana. We believe we'll be able to develop or at least utilize new energy systems. Right now when you are using solar, you primarily have to use it only during the day, or at least you have to have a lot of investment in your storage capabilities.
But there's a concept called work storage, whereby rather than crushing at night, you crush only during the day when the sun is out, and there is sun for solar, and then at night, you can do other processes that are not as energy-intensive.
We are also looking at having a good understanding of what we have beneath the ground and have an accurate view of the grade that is on the soil. How much revenues are we realistically anticipating, etc. So those are the things that we are looking at going forward in terms of using technology for value addition.
Any parting thoughts?
Technology is a great game changer, provided that we keep our people skilled with the right tools, the right understanding, the right education, to be able to leverage this. Everything that we do at Debswana is always not only about what it means for our organization as an entity, but also our society in Botswana.
I want to see AI language models that are written in Botswana. I want our blockchain systems to be used to really enhance the lives of Botswana. I believe technology is not only about sounding smart, but deploying tools that will actually make a difference in people’s lives.