"Let AI Draft, Let Human Intelligence Define": NUST Alumni Challenge Students to Think Beyond Marketing
"Let AI draft, let human intelligence define."
With that line, Dr Nick Nicholas Ndebele, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), summed up what he believes tomorrow's marketers must understand.
Returning to his alma mater as keynote speaker at the NUST Marketers' Day, he told students that the future of marketing is not simply about selling products.
“It is about understanding people, embracing innovation and turning insight into action,” said Dr Ndebele
The event, hosted by the Department of Marketing and Consumer Science in the Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences, took place at the Technovation Centre.
Dr Ndebele urged students about to enter an increasingly digital and competitive marketplace to look beyond traditional approaches and make use of AI, data and emerging technologies.
He was equally clear that technology does not replace the marketer. Zimbabwe's market has its own realities such as price-sensitive consumers, tight marketing budgets, fragmented customer data and shifting consumer behaviour.
“AI can take on much of the routine and analytical work, but only a person can define the problem, supply context, interpret what the data means and make the call,” said Dr Ndebele.
He also urged students to cultivate creativity and be willing to challenge the status quo, as many organisations, need people who ask better questions, experiment and find better ways of doing things.
A fellow NUST alumnus, Mr Admire Ndumo, CEO of Clover Leaf, brought the conversation from strategy to mindset.
His advice to students was to start from where they are and carry the right attitude with them.
“It begins with the right attitude, when you do little tasks with great perfection. It doesn’t matter whether its small tasks during the industrial attachment or at church or wherever. When you are able to deliver, people always remember you,” said Mr Ndumo.
His message was that success rarely begins with perfect circumstances.
“It begins with determination and the willingness to make the most of the opportunities at hand,” said Mr Ndumo.
Students met that generosity with curiosity, asking thoughtful questions and drawing on every bit of experience on offer, determined to reach the same heights as the alumni standing before them.
For the NUST Alumni community, seeing Dr Ndebele and Mr Ndumo back on campus is more than a homecoming, it shows graduates continuing to shape and inspire the students who follow them.