Author: Gugu Lourie

South Africa is investigating the possibility of building a locally-produced communications satellite. The satellite is to support multi-modal, augmented remote learning systems. “As we try to find better ways to implement effective multi-modal, augmented remote learning systems, we are considering the use of Space Science and Earth Observation technologies and platforms in support of our plans to reach to vulnerable students,” Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation. “The Department of Science and Innovation, in conjunction with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Sentech and South African National Space Agency, is currently looking at a long-term solution…

South Africa’s tertiary students will receive free data for the next three months and laptops to help them with online education during the lockdown. “We acknowledge that the cost of connectivity remains a huge barrier for students who want to use the digital learning mode as part of our multi-modal and remote learning,” Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, said on Saturday. “The department has successfully negotiated with all mobile network operators a favourable rates for NSFAS students, including the Funza Lushaka students, who will receive 10GB daytime and 20GB night-time data for three months, starting from…

Blood & Water, Netflix’s second original African series, is the first South African show to reach number 1 in the USA. Blood & Water is directed by one of South Africa’s most recognisable black female directors, award-winning Nosipho Dumisa (Best Director, Fantasia International Film Festival) and produced by Gambit Films led by Bradley Joshua and Benjamin Overmeyer as producers, with Daryne Joshua & Travis Taute as co-directors and writers and Simon Beesley as lead editor. ‘Blood & Water’ now holds the number one spot in the Top 10 in the USA on Netflix. It is the first South African…

An online petition calling for the removal of Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has been getting support from folks all over and is showing no signs of slowing. The ‘Remove Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma from Cabinet’ petition had garnered close to 70, 000 supporters by late on Friday. The petition on Change.org started by Caro-Lynn Wilson states that Dlamini-Zuma under the National Disaster Act is rewriting laws for her ‘own personal gain and power’. In it, Wilson says that Dlamini-Zuma is “stripping South African citizens of their human rights”. “Please let this petition show that we as South African citizens still have the…

A new Facebook group is planning a protest march against the tobacco ban imposed by the South African government. The group, known as “Protest March Against The Tobacco Ban” is planning a protest march on Tuesday, 26 May. The government has been warned and they have until Monday to do away with the tobacco ban. If not, the group will march to the gates of Parliament on Tuesday at 12:00, lockdown restrictions or not. “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Action speaks louder than words. We Need To Take A Stand. We Need To Do This For Our Country! Viva South Africa!” This…

The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is trending on social media after it emerged that it has only paid ten people the R350 Social Relief Grant. More than 4,9 million people have applied for the new special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant. Speaking to SAFM on Friday, SASSA’s CEO Busisiwe Memela-Khambula confirmed that, as of 14:30 on 22 May, just ten people had been paid. “We did a test last week we paid about 10 people to make sure the system works.” SASSA started taking nationwide applications for the grant on 11 May 2020. SASSA boss told…

Over 11 million South Africans do not have a bank account and, in lockdown, sending and receiving wages is logistically challenging. Many businesses have been forced to close, causing people to run out of cash. Hunger is now a more immediate threat than the virus. The payment needs of vulnerable individuals must quickly be met if widespread civil unrest is to be averted. 6DOT50 is stepping in with a new way to pay for essential goods, as COVID-19 takes its toll on the South African economy. As a platform focused on financial inclusion of unbanked and underbanked customers in emerging…

Vodacom announced on Thursday a simplified structure by creating a standalone South African operation with its own managing director and assuming responsibility for managing Vodafone Ghana. The creation of a standalone South African operating company was necessitated by a need to play a central role in overseeing all operations across its African footprint, the Vodafone-owned company said. The newly created Vodacom South Africa operation will be led by Balesh Sharma in the newly created role of Managing Director. Vodacom Group added that it will assume management responsibility for Vodafone Ghana from 1 April 2020. The company has also concluded a…

FNB announced on Thursday the launch of Manila, an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to monitor certain regulatory and financial risks, including tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, and insider trading. Traditionally, this is a time-consuming and laborious process that requires human analysts to gather large swathes of information, review them and generate insights from them, write rationales supporting their thinking, and finally, make decisions about potential or perceived risk. To deal with this challenge, FNB created an AI-enhanced forensic due diligence process solution called “Manila” Through Manila, FNB said it can meet all of those regulatory requirements, but decisions can be…

Ecommerce, the sale of goods and services online, is being embraced by many South Africans during the COVID-19 lockdown. For many retailers that have been allowed to trade essential services during South Africa’s hard lockdown, online delivery services have become a lifeline. South African drugstore chain Dis-Chem Pharmacies informed investors on Wednesday that after year-end, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has experienced different trading patterns to that of corresponding years. The company said before the lockdown came into effect on 27 March 2020, its retail stores experienced a substantial increase in revenue compared to the corresponding period of 45.6%…

Naspers announced on Wednesday a R100 million investment in AgriTech business Aerobotics, through its earlystage business funding initiative Naspers Foundry. Aerobotics is a subscription-based artificial intelligence (AI) company that provides intelligent tools for the agricultural industry to manage its crops. Aerobotics, founded by James Paterson and Benji Meltzer in 2014, is a leader in the application of artificial intelligence in agriculture. The insights Aerobotics provides to its clients include tree counts, the identification of missing trees, and the size and health of trees. The company has progressed its technology to engineer fruit counts, and to provide data on fruit size…

South Africa’s FinTech startup Peach Payments announced on Wednesday that it has received funding from fund manager Allan Gray and private equity Umkhathi Wethu (UW Ventures). The company said the growth funding would drive its expansion into the rest of Africa and accelerate product development. “Over the last five years, Peach Payments has proven itself as a payment gateway. The business is well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities across the continent,” explains Nicolaas Botha, who is part of the Allan Gray ventures team. Peach Payments enables global e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento and offers APIs for customized…

South African food retailers have been scrambling to deliver groceries to their customers as demand for online shopping increases during the lockdown. Pick n PayOnline, South Africa’s largest online grocery retailer, announced on Tuesday that it is signing up more online shoppers as more people turn to online convenience during the lockdown. Since the end of March 2020, Pick n Pay’s online shop has had more than 144,000 new customers registered online. This is 8x more registrations than the previous year. Pick n Pay online also experienced a 200% increase in active transacting online customers during the period. For more…

Pick n Pay Online, South Africa’s largest online grocery retailer, announced on Tuesday that it is signing up more online shoppers as more people turn to online convenience during the lockdown. The COVID-19 outbreak has significantly accelerated the demand for online shopping and many shoppers turned to Pick n Pay Online for their grocery shop. Since the end of March 2020, Pick n Pay’s online shop has had more than 144,000 new customers registered online. This is 8x more registrations than the previous year. Pick n Pay online also experienced a 200% increase in active transacting online customers during the period. Last year the retailer significantly enhanced its online offering, which included changing its logistics…

Nedbank has launched a new ‘super app’, called Avo, which will give the bank’s customers to access online shopping, essential services and financial products on a single platform. “Created to bring customers and businesses together, accurately matching customer’s lifestyle needs to product and service offerings through powerful artificial intelligence, safe and secure payments, and bank-grade security.” – Fred Swanepoel, Chief Information Officer of Nedbank. To date, Avo has reached the milestone of over 5 000 customers registered and 170 registered Home Repair and Services merchants. With requests flying in daily, Avo may just be the platform small businesses need to…

In these times of great economic uncertainty, the fibre industry is a great South African success story and proof of how the private sector can drive economic development, says Jessica Spira, Business Development Director at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB). The bank was the joint mandated lead arranger and co-funder of a R16-billion senior debt financing package provided to Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH), concluded in December 2019, to help fund the expansion of their operating companies Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa, the country’s two largest privately-owned providers of fibre infrastructure. “Funders don’t put that kind of money into a business…

Agile Capital, a black-owned private equity firm, is sitting on R900 million cash pile and is hunting for investment opportunities. The Johannesburg-based mid-market private equity investment firm offers a solid investment track record and long-term growth prospects. Agile, which means “to build” in Setswana, was launched in 2015 by passionate and highly-skilled business partners Tshego Sefolo and Londeka Shezi. Agile, through its private equity funds, targets investments across diverse sectors. It has R2,38 billion assets under management. Agile Capital has a capital of about R900-million available for investment into new opportunities. “We have managed to establish ourselves as a respected private…

JSE-listed property group Balwin is slowly building its fibre business. Balwin is a construction and property group focusing on large scale sectional-title residential estates in high-growth, high-density metropolitan nodes in South Africa’s major cities. In 2017, Balwin Properties created Balwin Fibre to own all fibre infrastructure across its estate to become a large fibre network operator in South Africa. The group now generates annuity income by leveraging off its asset base and expanding its service offering to homeowners.  The primary source of annuity income is through the provision of high-speed fibre connectivity to homeowners within Balwin’s estates through Balwin Fibre. …

Inspired by a BBC article, a journalist asked people to share the last “normal photo” on their phones. The #LastNormalPhoto is now trending on Twitter, with thousands of people sharing images of what feels like a different lifetime. The BBC recently asked people to share an image their pre-COVID life, asking for the “last normal photo” in everyone’s camera roll. They then published an article over the weekend with 13 images, and 13 people’s touching stories about those images, from weddings to huge sporting events. Inspired by the article, journalist Robyn Vinter also asked Twitter users to share, and the…

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has ordered all soldiers to return to work as it sets up four field hospitals to deal with COVID-19. The Sunday Independent reports that SANDF is setting up four field hospitals valued at R50 million. The newspaper added that the army is also planning to convert 2010 Soccer World Cup stadiums into countrywide field hospitals. A senior SANDF official told the paper that FNB Stadium and Moses Mabhida Stadium were among the four venues. Two weeks ago President Cyril Ramaphosa warned the country that the “worst is still coming.” The president has deployed…

As part of South Africa’s lockdown regulations – including during level 4 – the sale of cigarettes is not allowed. Smokers say the lockdown ban on cigarette sales has been a spectacular failure and should be lifted as soon as possible, according to a Sunday Times report. In a study entitled Lighting up the illicit market, members of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) research unit on the economics of excisable products said the ban had caused “hyperinflation” in which cigarette prices “skyrocketed” by 4.4% a day. The ban has made a cigarette price war after the lockdown inevitable and…

The department of basic education wants schools in ‘hotspots’ such as Buffalo City, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Mangaung and Nelson Mandela Bay to be regarded as being on lockdown level 5 and remain closed in June. Schools were closed from March 18 due to a coronavirus outbreak. More than 5,000 schools in COVID-19 hot spots across SA, including 929 private schools, will stay shut next month if the cabinet approves a new proposal by the basic education department, the Sunday Times reports. Keeping these schools shut would affect 3.7-million pupils and 134,779 teachers. The Sunday Times reports that according…

South African businesses have called for the coronavirus lockdown level 4 to be lifted so that the country can be moved to level 2. The country is preparing for a further easing and gradual reopening of the economy. Most of South Africa is likely to move to level 3 lockdown by June 1 while hotspot areas, especially big metros, are likely to remain on level 4 lockdown. The government is likely to review the regulations for level 4 restrictions. For more read: South Africa’s COVID-19 Hotspots To Remain in Level 4 Sandile Zungu, chair of the Black Business Council, said…

As of today, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa is 13 524. Case Data Province New cases on 15 May 2020 Total cases for 15 May 2020 Percentage total Eastern Cape 93 1662 12,3 Free State 6 151 1,1 Gauteng 75 2210 16,3 KwaZulu-Natal 38 1482 11,0 Limpopo 2 57 0,4 Mpumalanga 0 67 0,5 North West 5 63 0,5 Northern Cape 3 34 0,3 Western Cape 563 7798 57,7 Unknown 0 0 0,0 Total 785 13524 100,0 Testing Data 421 555 tests have been conducted with 18 537 done in the last 24 hour cycle. Sector…

More than 3.5 million people have applied for the new special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant – within three days of the system going live. “The special COVID-19 SRD Grant is intended to mitigate the undue hardships faced by individuals and families through this difficult time. We are pleased with the intake so far and we urge all eligible individuals to apply on time,” Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu said on Thursday. The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) started taking nationwide applications for the grant on Monday. “As of Friday, 3 585 040 applications were received.…