Author: Contributor
By Hans Geldenhuys, managing sales director at Intelsat Africa is projected to be one of the world’s fastest-growing television markets over the next decade. To cement that position, cable distributors are banking on population surges in some of the continent’s largest cities, and fresh, new content that resonates with the indigenous culture. It goes without saying that viewers are drawn to programming with storylines, characters and even real-life scenarios they can relate to. Intelsat has been part of the television fabric in Africa for many decades. We were the first satellite operator to provide connectivity to educational networks and to…
By Staff Writer JSE listed Capital Appreciation Limited announced on Wednesday that it has acquired 100 percent of Synthesis Software Technologies for R132.1 million. Synthesis is a specialised financial technology company that provides software development, consulting and integration services to financial institutions. Current clients include blue chip financial organisations such as Investec, Absa, Standard Bank, Capitec and Nedbank. It will remain independent, operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Capital Appreciation. Synthesis will continue to grow as a specialised financial technology provider with access to capital and other resources within Capital Appreciation to further invest in the business and expand its…
By David Cosgrave, Customer Intelligence Lead at SAS There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love shopping and those who would rather watch paint dry than step foot into a mall. I fall into the latter group. For me, shopping is a mission. The process usually goes like this: No, thank you. I would much rather shop online, even though it has its own drawbacks: I can’t try on anything I buy and I might have to wait a day or two to receive my order, which is not ideal in an age of instant gratification.…
By Staff Writer Internet Solutions, a pan-African telecommunications service provider, announced today the company’s roadmap to South Africa’s ‘first’ network- and tech-agnostic Internet of Things (IoT) platform to enable the vision of “Hybrid IoT”. The company owned by Dimension Data Group and part of NTT Group said on Tuesday that in partnership with Comsol Networks as the initial network connectivity solutions provider with its low-power wide area network (LoRaWAN) technology, the platform will present local businesses with a low-risk, fast-deployment means of exploring how IoT can make their operations more efficient, responsive and customer-centric. Internet Solutions’ IoT platform will offer intelligent, automated…
By Africa Ranker The most successful companies in Africa are spread across the continent, from north to south, and east to west, though of the largest 25, more than half are based in South Africa. Nigeria has the second highest number of large companies, followed by Morocco and Egypt. In many cases, more traditional companies have been overtaken in size and turnover by telecommunications and internet providers. Telecommunications Cape Town is home to the headquarters of Naspers, founded in 1915, now a multinational public company with 24,000 employees worth $60 billion. It offers internet and communication services, video entertainment and…
By Vincent Chin, Boston Consulting Group’s Senior Partner and MD of South East Asian businesses and operations “Show me the money”- the famous mantra of Jerry Maguire seems to be all too familiar to the African infrastructure industry. Like Jerry, many leaders keep talking about the money problem when they should be acting on the capability problem. The availability of capital is not the fundamental challenge facing Africa’s infrastructure sectors, but a lack of public sector capabilities to support and develop large volumes of high quality transport, energy and water projects. African public sector organisations need to channel their investment…
By Wayne de Nobrega, CEO of Tracker South Africa To most people, Tracker is a Stolen Vehicle Recovery (SVR) company. But while Tracker still has SVR at its core, the business has evolved significantly since its inception in 1996. Today, Tracker is one of the many companies capitalising on the Internet of Things (IoT) and the data provided by connected devices. Tracker’s entire business was essentially built on the connectedness of things. While the company has not relied on the Internet as the primary data network, the principles are the same. Those principles being that a variety of objects –…
by Ben Dickson As internet privacy continues to unravel, it is becoming more and more evident that you’re on your own to protect your data against the many parties that are looking to hoard it. Perhaps one of the most pervasive collectors of data are Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the same companies that connect you to the internet. ISPs have a huge stake in collecting data, mostly in selling it to advertisers to serve more targeted ads. And they’re in the best position to do so with wild abandon, without fear of retribution. But a lot more than your preferences…
by Ben Dickson No one will argue that Artificial Intelligence has taken great strides in past years. Thanks to AI we’re getting targeted and personalized ads, becoming better in education, healthcare, agriculture and whatnot. So what’s preventing Artificial Intelligence from taking the next big leap? Maybe it’s intelligence. Fact of the matter is, AI algorithms are becoming very smart and efficient at doing specific tasks, but they’re not smart enough to explain their decisions. And neither can their creators. How does that amount to a problem? It doesn’t, as long as AI is making suggestions and not decisions. So for…
by Brandon Klien, Collaboration.Ai I have been interested in education since I taught my first Sunday School class when I was in 6th grade. Teaching from the book (as I was told) versus helping kids understand and enjoy — always seemed at odds with what I saw and experienced. Well outside of my schooling years now, having had the opportunity to train many hundreds on how to facilitate collaboration better — I realize that I have once again become a student. Daily the evidence builds that our education system, now more than ever, is in need of change. And with three young children for…