Author: Gugu Lourie

This Apollo Thomas fellow is telling me via Facebook Messenger that I have serious problems. He declares; “There are several invisible and complex obstacles hindering your progression.” By Vula Mthimkhulu The thing is; I’ve always suspected this to be the case. The other day, I woke up to find my lounge invaded by hundreds of wet, white and thin chickens (a really bad version of Ramthuthu). With all entry points to the house properly sealed, except for the chimney, I concluded that yizinto zabantu lezi (someone is playing mind games with me). And so I sold them chickens to my local supermarket.…

I am an anthropologist with a special interest in establishing the field of the medical humanities. This emerging field is wide open for producing new knowledge about the history and culture of medical practices. It focuses, for instance, on representations of patients and medical landscapes in art, literature, philosophy, bioethics, and other disciplines in the arts and humanities. By Susan Levine Usually, our interdisciplinary masters course in this field at South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT) attracted fewer than 40 students. Then a colleague and I were asked to consider creating a Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC. These online…

African policy makers are increasingly called on to use evidence-based research to inform development decisions. But this requires the rigorous collection of data as well as a coordinated system to disseminate it. This is why Kenya-based African Population Health Research Center is advocating for national policies to enable strong data systems. Donatien Beguy explains Africa’s challenges and opportunities. By Donatien Beguy What is data driven decision making in the world of policy making? Data, and especially data of good quality, are essential for national governments and institutions to accurately plan, fund and evaluate development activities. Basic development indicators are essential for…

We launched ShowMax on 19 August 2015, hitting the ground running with Africa’s largest on-demand catalogue of TV shows and movies. Over the past 12 months we’ve clocked up well over 10 million views, or more than 700 years’ worth of content if viewed back to back. By Barron Ernst, Chief Product Officer for ShowMax It’s been an insanely busy year for our team. My intention isn’t to boast, because we’ve got loads more to do, but dispassionately I’d say we’ve achieved a fair amount in that time. Enabling content downloads, setting up data usage caps, putting together a cash…

MTN said in a statement on Thursday that it was experiencing voice and data connectivity issues affecting some of its subscribers across the country. “Engineers are investigating the issue,” the company said. “MTN apologise to affected customers for any inconvenience caused.” In May, Mteto Nyati MTN CEO, said MTN has prioritised transforming customer experience as one of the key differentiators that will set MTN apart from the competition. To that end, MTN embarked on an aggressive network rollout which saw the operator increasing spend by 92.9% last year and adding 966 2G sites, 1 593 largely co-located 3G sites and 3…

ogaVenue the Lagos-based online events venue booking platform, announced on Thursday that it has secured a $45k seed investment from Spark and Hotels.ng. By Staff writer The investment will be used to increase inventory, for further expansion to more states across Nigeria and to build out the product, engineering and business development team. Launched in 2014, the online events venue search & booking platform enables customers to source the perfect venue for weddings, conferences or birthdays. ogaVenue was launched by Andrew Airelobhegbe, former CTO at Amsbro.com (An EdTech startup). After just one year of trading, ogaVenue already lists 2000+ venue…

The SA Post Office (Sapo) has launched a free app to allow customers to keep track of all their parcels and locate the nearest Post Office branches. “This is intrinsic to our new strategy of modernising our services as a group, with technology the critical enabler for customer solutions,” Sapo Chief Information Officer Mthoko Mncwabe said on Thursday. He said the Post Office is using technology to improve customer experience. The app, simply called ‘South African Post Office’, is available free of charge on the Google Playstore for Android devices and on the iStore for Apple devices. The app tracks…

When it comes to identifying someone allegedly involved in a crime there can be risks associated with seeing photos of people on Facebook and other social media, as the recent case involving convicted killer Adrian Bayley highlights. By Paul McGorrery Bayley was arrested in 2012 for the rape and murder of ABC journalist Jill Meagher. He later pleaded guilty in 2013 and was sentenced to a minimum term of 35 years. In 2014 and 2015, Bayley was found guilty of raping three other women. The first incident was alleged to have taken place in 2000 and the other two were in…

JSE-listed IT firm Adapt IT informed investors on Thursday that headline earnings per share – South Africa’s main profit gauge – rose 36% to 57.54 cents a share for the year to end-June 2016. By Staff writer The software and computer services firm added that its operating profit jumped 58% to R136 million. Adapt IT CEO, Sbu Shabalala, attributed the strong performance to various factors including the implementation of a strategy focused on sustainable growth and diversification. “The Adapt IT strategy is to remain an industry focused niche software provider which grows turnover and profit at a much higher rate…

When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick up within five seconds? This urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won’t have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food and food contact surfaces become contaminated, and we’ve done some work on this particular piece of wisdom. By Paul Dawson While the “five-second rule” might not seem like the most pressing issue for food scientists to get to the bottom of,…