ORADA Responsible AI Conference Highlight: Critical Steps for Businesses to Successfully and Ethically Integrate AI​, with Thato Sopeng, VP Information Technology at Sasol

We’re excited to bring you this incredibly relevant and important topic at ORADA 2025.

Dear Leader,

Artificial intelligence models, which are in turn built into computer and mobile applications as well as larger systems are trained on massive amounts of data to identify patterns that can be used to assess, make decisions about and act on new input data. This can drive great efficiencies and even increase revenues, in cases where the use of AI speeds up processes (e.g. reducing the administrative burden), improves the quality of results (e.g. reducing loan write-offs for banks) or improves the sales of products (e.g. smart recommendation based product discounts and product sets in retail). In a perfect world where the data were perfect and fundamentally unbiased, and:

• Privacy in relation to data;

• Data provenance;

• Transparency and explainability;

• Fairness in the use of data and AI; as well as

• AI misuse

amongst other ethical considerations didn’t present critical issues, running ahead and implementing AI solutions would only present the upside and pose no challenges for businesses and organisations. However, ethical challenges in data and AI are real and important. This list may sound like a bunch of words, but AI not used correctly can result in negative real life impacts that weigh heavily on the everyday lives of people like you, me and others in our social and familial circles. Take for example a loan approval AI model that inadvertently discriminates against people living in certain geographies or a job application filtering AI model that’s learnt from datasets extensively influenced by systemic discrimination and / or uncoscious bias. Unfortunately, neither of these examples are theoretical. In addition to the impact on critical stakeholder groups, organisational reputation could suffer and organisations could attract sanctions from regulators. The impact on shareholder value could be immense.

So how can businesses and start-ups take the win while mitigating effectively against the risks and implementing value adding, ethical AI systems?

Thato Sopeng, Vice President: Information Technology at Sasol, will lead us through this very topic at ORADA 2025.

What to Expect During the Critical Steps for Businesses to Successfully and Ethically Integrate AI​ with Thato Sopeng, VP Information Technology at Sasol session

In this interactive session, Thato Sopeng, a seasoned business and technology leader will take walk us through the strategic and tactical approaches for integrating AI into organisational processes and systems, while taking ethical considerations into account.

We’ll have the opportunity to gain insights on this topic, not from the perspective of a software provider offering us solutions or a service provider offering to help us think through the ethical considerations of AI, but a leader in industry that has wrestled with these questions at both a strategic and hands-on level. 

At the end of the day, the goal is to implement AI responsibly and this session will help us think about and plan to do so effectively.

Take a look at the rest of the programme below: 

ORADA 2025 Programme

Day 1: Thursday, 3 April 2025

Day 2: Friday, 4 April 2025

Note: The ORADA 2025 Programme is subject to change based on planning and logistical requirements.

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