Author: Staff Writer
Microsoft has added, in public preview, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) support for two of South Africa’s official languages, Afrikaans and isiZulu. “Adding support for these languages is part of Microsoft’s mission to build meaningful cognitive products and services that improve local engagement,” says Rory Preddy, Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft South Africa. “This support, which now counts a total of 73 languages, means that more people are able to connect in their own language and that language will become a seamless feature of using technology, rather than a hindrance.” OCR support for local languages allows users to use visual data…
“As we look towards recovery,” Hu said, “we need to ensure that innovation isn’t just about today. It’s about lighting up tomorrow and creating greater social value.”
The second Gauteng SMME Summit 2021 will be held be virtually to adhere to best practice in social distancing measures and live-streamed on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The Gauteng SMME Summit 2021 aims to help create access to information, financial assistance, and ultimately access to markets for the township-based enterprises. It will seek ways to ensure that the SMMEs overcome the financial burden that the coronavirus pandemic has caused. “Through this summit, the department seeks to tackle the issues of inclusive economic transformation and strengthen the importance of collaboration and cooperation amongst small businesses. Our objectives are to achieve tangible…
The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) has committed to buy up to $50 million (R745 million) of a bond issue by Liquid Telecom. Today, the company launched the bond, which aims to raise $600 million (R8.9 billion). The capital raised from the bond issue will be used to refinance existing debt and for corporate purposes. EAIF, acting through its agent Ninety One SA, along with The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and DEG-Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (DEG), has committed to placing orders to purchase up to an aggregate $178 million (R2,6 billion) in the New Note Offering. Liquid Telecom has built…
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) on Monday announced it will delay the announcement of qualified bidders upcoming spectrum auction. “The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa advises stakeholders that the announcement of qualified bidders in terms of the International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) Invitation to Apply (ITA) of 2 October 2020 has been moved from the initial date of 22 February 2021 to 23 March 2021.” This, therefore, means that the auction phase – which comprises, amongst others, the bidder seminar, the mock auction and the actual auction – will commence by 31 March 2021, said ICASA. One…
President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that the recent attacks on the country’s judiciary should not be taken lightly, warning that these shake the very foundations of South Africa’s constitutional democracy. “Unless supported by evidence, such claims undermine confidence in our courts, and weaken our Constitutional order,” wrote the President in his weekly newsletter on Monday. This as there have been utterances directed at the judiciary, in which some judges are accused, without any evidence, of pursuing interests other than the cause of justice. Judges have been accused of political agendas and some have even been accused of accepting bribes. “We…
Khulisa Investment Partners is planning to raise R750 million from institutional investors to invest in small-medium enterprises (SMEs). The private equity enabler founded by Dr Phumla Mnganga, Malcolm Rutherford and Chris Lister-James enables clients to build their bespoke portfolios in the private equity asset class. “Khulisa has identified the two largest bottlenecks faced by growing SME’s: the first being access to strategic and governance skills and the second, access to finance. Our solution was to establish Khulisa to address this conundrum and, by so doing, also contribute positively to our own future,” says Dr Mnganga, founder of Khulisa and Lehumo…
Capitec, South Africa’s largest digital bank, continues to support its over 15 million clients during this tough financial time through its new 2021 fees. No increases were applied to monthly fees or digital banking with the Global One monthly admin fee remaining flat at only R5, monthly credit card fee at R40, debit orders at R3.50 and digital payments at just R1. Immediate payments were reduced further to R7.50 from R8 last year and from R10 three years ago showing the bank’s commitment to lead in innovative digital payment solutions. “We’re keeping our competitive digital fees unchanged to meet client…
Smile Telecoms Holdings founder Irene Charnley has retired with effect from 1 January 2021, the Pan-African telecommunications group said on Monday. Hailed as one of Africa’s most successful business leaders, Charnley has led Smile Telecom’s innovation and pioneering of Africa’s first 4G LTE network infrastructure. Charnley has retired as deputy chairman from the Smile Telecoms board. The company also the retirement of Smile Telecoms co-founder Mohammed Wajih Sharbatly from its board and all boards of the operating companies, effective 1 January 1 2021. Sharbatly has acted as co-chairman of the group through December 2020. “Today we say farewell to our…
A distributional analysis of the ownership of South African household net wealth revealed that the wealthiest 2% of households owned almost 50% of household net wealth (just before the start of the pandemic). South African households’ real net wealth increased by an estimated R1 009.1 billion (R1.009 trillion) from the onset of the second quarter of 2020 (Q2 2020) to the end of the year (Q4 2020). This happened despite COVID-19, the lockdown, job losses and an economic contraction. This recovery follows an estimated decline of R772.8 billion during Q1 2020 that resulted from the introduction of lockdowns in many…