Dr Jan Mentz says future IT professionals will need creativity, empathy and independent thinking as much as technical skill
Information technology is closer to social science than pure engineering,” says Dr Jan Mentz, newly appointed Head of School for Information Technology at STADIO Higher Education, who believes the future of IT education lies not only in technical proficiency, but in understanding people, systems, and human behaviour.
Mentz’s career spans nearly three decades in higher education, including leadership and academic roles at Belgium Campus iTversity, UNISA and Tshwane University of Technology.
Mentz holds a PhD in Information Systems from the University of South Africa and has supervised numerous postgraduate research projects in areas including enterprise architecture, digital systems, e-learning, cloud migration and business capability development.
At STADIO, he says, his goal is to help shape graduates who understand both technology and the people it is meant to serve.
“I want to show the market that a STADIO IT professional understands human activity and is able to provide the kind of solutions that serve human purposes rather than the other way around.”
