Author: Staff Writer

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) wishes to express its heartfelt congratulations to the outstanding recognition of its Head of Technology and Solutions Delivery (TSD), Intikhab Shaik, for receiving the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA) President’s Award as the Visionary Chief Information Officer of the Year. What makes this prestigious accomplishment so noteworthy is that Mr Shaik’s work was compared against industry peers in both the private and public sectors. The determination that his performance is unmatched and stands head and shoulders above all others is a testament to the quality of his technology leadership. It was…

Huawei has hosted its first Cape Town Tech Convention at which it demonstrated its investment and commitment to partners and customers in the Western Cape. It also shared some of the innovative products and solutions it offers in the region as well as its plans for further expansion, which will allow customers to compete globally. Opening the convention, Gene Zhang, Huawei Managing Director of Enterprise Business South Africa, underlined how investing in the ICT ecosystem, is critical in an increasingly digital world. “The global economy and society are recovering after the COVID-19 pandemic and the digital transformation of industries has…

Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies a pan-African technology group,  announced today it has secured a piece of land adjacent to its existing data centre in Nairobi, Kenya, and plans to expand the facility up to an extra 15MW of IT load. The build will be completed in the first half of 2024 and will bring five times more than the current capacity. According to Hardy Pemhiwa, Group President & CEO of Cassava Technologies, “Colocation has become the foundation of African digital transformation and will be for the foreseeable future. Our investment into expanding our data centre operations…

Synatic, SA’s data integration and automation business, has secured an additional $2.5 million or R42 million in a seed extension funding round led by Allan Gray E-Squared Ventures and UW Ventures. Synatic will use the additional funds to expand its market reach in the United States in preparation for Series A funding in 2023. Synatic has built off a strong South African customer base, providing large scale enterprise data integration and aggregation to the likes of Easy Equities. Through growing its market globally it currently provides data solutions to multiple multinationals such as HCC Tokio Marine, a US-headquartered insurance group.…

With the goal of serving South Africans with hearing loss, MTN is piloting a national relay service (NRS) which harnesses the power of technology to enable users to make and receive phone calls. Depending on the type of call, an operator will speak, type, or use sign language when facilitating calls for or between deaf, hard of hearing, or deafblind South Africans. Together with Convo South Africa, a deaf-owned company, the pilot project expands communication access for those who otherwise would not be able to communicate via voice call, audio or video. Users of MTN’s NRS service will be able…

Spotify today announced the arrival of South Africa’s Wrapped 2022, the platform’s deep dive into the music that defined the year for users locally. The way we listen to music says a lot about us. As part of Wrapped 2022, Spotify users get a detailed snapshot of their most loved artists, creators and songs. And as part of this year’s fun, Audio Day shows how Spotify users’ musical choices evolve throughout the day while the new Your Listening Personality feature tells users about the music they listen to and what that says about their music taste. One of 16 different…

The Milken Institute and the Motsepe Foundation has launched the Milken-Motsepe Prize in Green Energy, a $2 million or R33.8 million prize competition to reward entrepreneurs and innovators working to address one of the most pressing and immediate challenges of our time—access to green, renewable energy. The winning individual or team will be awarded $1 million, with an additional $1 million disbursed throughout the competition as finalists progress and field test ideas. Registration for the prize is open now. There is no cost to apply, and anyone, anywhere in the world is eligible to submit their idea for consideration.…

African countries have been urged to invest in building resilient internet infrastructure to tap digital opportunities and accelerate social and economic transformation on the continent. Global leaders attending the 17th Internet Governance Forum being held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, underscored the importance of digital technologies as tools for enhancing development across Africa. “The internet’s contribution to social development is immense, the democratization of knowledge and communication, access to entrepreneurship skills and new employment opportunities health care access and education are a few noteworthy ones,” Mr. Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, said in opening remarks…

Mercedes-Benz and Bosch have reached an important milestone on the way to automated driving: Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) has approved their highly automated parking system for use in the P6 parking garage run by APCOA at Stuttgart Airport. This makes it the world’s first highly automated driverless parking function (SAE Level 4)[1] to be officially approved for commercial use. “The world’s first approval for customer use of our highly automated and driverless parking function, developed together with our technology partner Bosch, shows that innovation leadership and ‘Made in Germany’ go hand in hand,” says Markus Schäfer, Member of the…

ICT skills development is critical for South Africa to participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and reap the benefits of a digital economy. This was the consensus of various speakers at Huawei South Africa’s ICT Talent Development annual awards ceremony at its Woodmead campus yesterday. The event celebrated the higher education partner institutions and facilitators of the Huawei ICT Academy Programme, which was established to identify, cultivate, and develop the best talent through collaboration between industry, educational institutions, and the public sector. “The ICT sector is growing fast and we must respond to its needs, especially when it comes…