Technological innovation is critical to the future of the mining and exploration industry in Africa, as it helps miners, explorers and developers find new deposits and make current deposits safer and more commercially attractive, says diamond explorer and developer Botswana Diamonds MD James Campbell.

Scheduled to speak on February 4 at the Investing in African Mining Indaba, in Cape Town, Campbell will unpack the topic: ‘Is policy a blocker to technology and innovation?’ during a panel discussion that will explore the relationship between policy, mining and technological innovation.

Campbell will address the importance of government policies in supporting technological innovation, the reasons for policy not keeping pace with the rate of technological advancement, and the required level of collaboration among governments, businesses and academia to drive technological advancements.

“Anything government can do to encourage technological innovation will, thus, help improve the mining industry in Africa.”

Campbell believes that government’s involvement in technological innovation, especially in the mining industry, is of “paramount importance”, as it will help improve South Africa’s competitiveness from a mining and exploration perspective.

Important policies, which should be considered to boost such an endeavour, include the establishment of an innovation fund to help encourage young technical entrepreneurs, tax breaks for companies that focus on technical innovation, and the encouragement of technical innovation business incubators.

“Exploration can also be defined as innovation and here the government can look at tax breaks for companies investing in exploration and providing key seed capital or perhaps being an anchor investor,” he adds.

Unfortunately, though, most governments tend to move slowly with policy development, while the rate of technological innovation is much faster, notes Campbell.

For this to improve, governments need to provide enabling legislation, rather than bureaucracy, as well as fewer interventionist policies.

“From a mining perspective, technology can help you mine safer and more efficiently. The challenge in Africa would be to embrace these two paradigms and create jobs at the same time,” he says.

Bolstering Botswana

Campbell tells Mining Weekly that Botswana Diamonds is working on a large-scale AI project, in Botswana, using its extensive database and historically archived government data.

“This is most exciting, as we are not only looking for new diamond deposits but also other potential commercial projects, specifically copper and platinum group-metals.”

He adds that from an exploration perspective, one needs to look at new thinking around geological models, and in particular, technologies which have had recent breakthroughs.

“If miners do what has been done in the past, then it is most unlikely that they will get positive results as the so-called ‘old timers’ were excellent at their jobs,” states Campbell.