Author: Staff Writer
The country’s communications watchdog, ICASA, today revealed a timetable and roadmap to expedite the licensing of the International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) spectrum, also known as the high-demand spectrum and the Wireless Open Access Network (WOAN). This roadmap follows the consent order granted by the North Gauteng High Court on Wednesday, 15 September 2021, which ended the litigation instituted against ICASA by Telkom and e.tv. The Court granted an Order to review and set aside ICASA’s decision to publish the Invitations to Apply (ITA) for both the high demand spectrum and WOAN. The Court further directed that the matter be referred…
Diversified tech group 4Sight reported a 16.9% increase in revenue for the six-month period ended 30 June 2021; revenue rose from R249.1 million in the same period last year to R291.1 million. “Despite the challenging trading conditions and impact on potential growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are pleased to announce stable financial results for the six-month period under review,” states Tertius Zitzke, Chief Executive Officer at 4Sight. “These past 6 months have been challenging for all businesses across our Group. Results were mixed. The performance of our IT cluster was particularly affected by the impact of the pandemic.…
Women’s sport is on the rise and TelkomONE is the first South African streaming or satellite service to launch a channel recognising that 84% of sports fans are interested in female-led sports. W-Sport’s market research also found that women’s sport was deemed more inspiring, progressive, family orientated and less money orientated than men’s sport. “The pace of change in women’s sports necessitated that we launch W-Sport sooner than later,” says Wanda Mkhize, Executive Smart Home & Content at Telkom. “With female sporting role models like gymnast Simone Biles achieving much greater mainstream exposure for both their sporting prowess…
Sun Exchange, South Africa’s first peer-to-peer solar leasing platform, today announced it has secured $2.5 million or R37.6 million in convertible note financing from ARPF, a Mauritian private equity fund advised by London-based ARCH Emerging Markets Partners Limited (ARCH) (www.archempartners.com). This follows the company’s close of a $4 million Series A funding round in 2020, led by a $3 million investment from ARCH. The latest investment enables Sun Exchange to continue scaling its success using its crowd-based solar leasing platform to facilitate solar power for small-to-medium organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa, the segment most impacted by rising energy costs, unreliable grid infrastructure…
Since the new iteration of the COVID-19 Grant commenced early in August the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) has received close to 14 million applications. Over 8.3 million applicants have been approved and over 5.6 million have since been paid by the month of September 2021. Despite the high number of applications, SASSA has been able to expedite payment of verified clients, while continuing to verify the remaining applications. About 1.5 million applicants chose to be paid through the cardless payment channel at ATM’s. This category has not been paid as yet due to the fact that SASSA went…
Ramp, the UK-based predictive analytics startup co-founded by the man who helped put Candy Crush on the map, is on the hunt for South African talent for its Cape Town operation – and developers and venture capital analysts are top of their list, says the company’s Chief Growth Officer, Dan Marcus. Ramp was co-founded by Angus Lovitt, the former Marketing VP at game developer King; veteran tech entrepreneurs, Dan Marcus and Jan Pickard, who exited their successful workflow platform Magnetic in 2018; and software engineer Francois du Toit. The company is not short of ambition: its stated aim is to…
As we move into a new era, and people slowly return to the office, organisations are questioning traditional ideas on how work should be done, the role of the office and what the workspace should look like. Global real estate company JLL’s 2021 Top 10 Global CRE Trends report reveals that humanising the workplace is one of the ways that companies can entice people back to the office, along with creating a healthy work environment with a renewed focus on the wellbeing of employees. Zama Zaca, Head of Business Development at Tétris Design + Build, believes that employee flexibility in…
Ukheshe Technologies has announced a new partnership with Chipper, one of Africa’s most valuable startups, to enhance and accelerate the rollout out of Chipper’s digital payment offerings. These include free and unlimited P2P payments across South Africa, value-added services such as airtime and data and the ability to legally buy, sell or transfer cryptocurrency. The partnership will also allow for more efficient transactions across Africa, while fulfilling the lives of its customers on the back of the Ukheshe Eclipse API framework. The three-year-old startup, Chipper is the biggest and fastest-growing payment app in Africa offering instant no-fee local and cross-border…
General Motors is introducing Ultifi, a new end-to-end software platform designed to unlock new vehicle experiences and connect customers’ digital lives. Ultifi will help enable the frequent and seamless delivery of software-defined features, apps and services to customers over the air. It offers the potential for more cloud-based services, faster software development and new opportunities to increase customer loyalty. Ultifi is enabled by hardware built into select next-generation products starting in 2023, encompassing internal combustion and electric vehicles. “GM has decades of experience writing vehicle software, creating a solid foundation to build on,” said Mark Reuss, GM president. “Now with…
Huawei South Africa has celebrated the success of its first Youth Upskilling program recipients at an event where the ICT company was commended for taking an outcomes and needs based approach by providing young graduates with skills required within the sector and matching them with employment opportunities. The endorsement came from business, academia and government at an event to mark the initiative and award the first group of 12 graduates with certificates for completing their theory training. The programme aims to bridge the gap between academic learning and practical workplace skills in ICT disciplines and get young graduates “job ready”…