The Adoption Of 4th Industrial Technologies For Economic Development In Developing Countries – The Opportunity And Challenges. The case of United Republic of Tanzania

The major purpose of this research was to carry out assessment on challenges and opportunities of integrating fourth (4th) industrial technologies on economic development in developing countries. The case study research design was used because a case study is a comprehensive description and analysis of a single situation or a number of specific situations. A self-designed structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 150 respondents selected randomly from academicians, government officials, company directors, and Information Communication Technology (ICT) directors. The researchers collected 150 completed questionnaires from the respondents. Data were analysed using percentage, frequency and statistics. The findings of this research indicate that cybersecurity, and cloud computing technologies and mostly adopted for integration in economic development. General technical challenges, and lack of technical infrastructures such as affordable electricity and internet access are found out to be critical challenges in adopting fourth industrial technologies in developing countries. Facilitating the access to multilevel platforms that offer digital transformation programs for businesses, and connecting people to digital networks and intensely improving the efficiency of organizations was found to be a very good opportunity of integrating 4th industrial technologies for economic development in developing countries. It is therefore recommended by the researchers that the infrastructures with standard security measures should be built to minimize cyber insecurity. The researchers also recommend that specialized training for technical staff and employees on how to operate and manage 4th industrial technologies be conducted and the use of secure supported technological policies be implemented as a mechanism to prevent internal and external data loss.