Author: Staff Writer

Mercedes-Benz and Siemens plan to cooperate on advancing digitalization and automation in the automotive industry. The carmaker aims to digitize its production processes. Siemens, a leading supplier in the field of automation, industrial software and smart infrastructure, will bring its expertise and technologies to the partnership to develop highly flexible, efficient and sustainable automotive production together with Mercedes-Benz. “Mercedes-Benz takes digitalization to the next level in the global Mercedes-Benz Cars production network,” Jörg Burzer, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz AG, Production and Supply Chain Management, said. “Together with Siemens, we are driving forward the development of sustainable…

Curro Academy Pretoria’s Grade 11 learner, Tsakane Koko and her team made our country proud by finishing in second place at the “Olympics of Technology”, the Imagine Cup Junior Virtual Artificial Intelligence Hackathon, Girls Edition 2021. The Olympics of Technology provides learners with a platform to bring their ideas to life. Sponsored by Microsoft and in partnership with UNESCO, the Hackathon challenge is a live international event where teams (of 2-5 individuals) compete by trying to solve real-world problems using Artificial Intelligence (AI). At the Olympics of Technology, Tsakane’s team competed against 21 other countries, including Egypt, Canada, England, and…

4Sight, a diversified technology group, today announced strong results for its financial year ending 31 December 2020. The group’s revenue rose 6% to R522 million, and a recorded decline of 0,1% in gross profit margin from 53,7% to 53,6% (from continuing operations, i.e. excluding Digitata, which was disposed of during the reporting period). Profit after tax on continuing operations improved by more than 100%, achieving a net profit after tax margin of 5,6% as compared to a loss in the previous reporting period (in USD). The group’s operating expenses for continuing operations for the year decreased by 7.9% compared to…

South African traffic officers will be issued with body cameras to help gather evidence and improve the conviction rate for traffic law violators. Addressing the launch of the Easter Road Safety campaign on Monday on the N4 Bapong Weighbridge in the North West, Deputy Minister of Transport Dikeledi Magadzi said South Africa is ready to issue traffic officers with body cameras. “As the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) rolls out the use of body cameras within the fraternity over the next 3 to 5 years, we aim to improve the levels of service and ensure that this is executed to…

ICT industry veteran Andile Ngcaba‘s inq. has appointed Dr. Christian Wirtz as its new Group CEO from 1 April 2021. Dr Wirtz, currently an Executive in Group Enterprise at MTN, will be taking over from founding Group CEO Geoff Hardwick who has stepped down from the role. Dr Wirtz is an industry veteran with a wealth of telco and enterprise business experience having worked for more than two decades in the ICT sector across Africa and Europe.  “We are excited to have Christian joining us. He has traversed industry-leading organisations such as McKinsey, Vodafone, Vodacom and most recently MTN,” inq.’s…

Liquid Intelligent Technologies (Liquid) South Africa announced on Monday the launch of the two key digital corridors – NLD5 and NLD6 connecting Durban to Cape Town via the inland route. The completion of this fibre network will support the surging demand for high-speed internet as an increasing number of local businesses continue their digital transformation journeys. Liquid South Africa is part of the pan-African technology group Liquid Intelligent Technology Increased access to high-speed fibre connectivity is critical to improving not just telecommunication services for millions of South Africans in the country. The digital; corridors will also bring substantial social and…

Global cloud communications company Infobip has announced its full Communications Platform-as-a-Service offering is now available on Microsoft Azure, thereby extending the enterprise customer base globally for Infobip – particularly in the finance, eCommerce and retail sectors, and allow it to expand its core market footprint. The Azure deployment is the latest step in Infobip’s technology collaboration with Microsoft that sees Infobip adding its omnichannel capability to Microsoft’s platforms for the benefit of all enterprise and B2B customers seeking easy to scale customer engagement and customer service solutions that span contact centre, marketing, security and authentication services. As the company edges…

ICASA, the country’s communications watchdog, is extending the temporary radio frequency spectrum assignments for licensees. Last April, ICASA released the emergence high-demand spectrum to meet the spike in broadband services demand due to COVID-19. Today, ICASA said it has resolved to review the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) COVID-19 National Disaster Regulations (The Regulations) and extend the temporary radio frequency spectrum assignments issued to licensees for another two months (from 1 April 2021 to 31 May 2021). The temporary release of high demand spectrum (HDS) to licensees aimed to mitigate the impact of the national state of disaster following the…

In 2020, Vodacom became the first telco globally to zero-rate the lifesaving addressing technology, What3words, for its 43 million subscribers across South Africa. Fast forward 10 months and the system has been used by over 14,000 Vodacom subscribers. Today, Vodacom is highlighting some of the real-life callers from the Western Cape area who have used the technology in an emergency, and who were able to receive fast medical help thanks to the accurate address. Dr Shaheem de Vries Medical Director WCGH Emergency Medical Services Western Cape Government Health ‘A construction worker in Salt River fell on duty, knocked unconscious…

Liquid Intelligent Technologies (Liquid), a pan-African technology group, has appointed Sandile Ntsele as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for its South Africa operations, effective 15 April 2021. Sandile has extensive experience working in senior finance roles, most recently as the CFO for MTN South Africa. He will be instrumental in overseeing Liquid South Africa’s corporate and financial strategy as the organisation repositions itself and optimise its network and technological capabilities to deliver on its corporate vision of enabling a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind. “We are delighted to welcome Sandile to Liquid. His in-depth understanding of the industry…