Author: Staff Writer

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…

The consultancy agreement between Explore AI, a Cape Town-based technology consulting company, and British water utility Thames Water has been extended. Explore-AI has been confirmed as a prefered Data Science partner. In 2019, Explore AI, the consulting division within the Explore Group (which also houses the Explore Data Science Academy), was tasked with delivering the analytics involved in monitoring the water flow within Thames Water’s vast distribution piping network. One initiative built an app to help Thames Water’s leakage technician identify which pipes are most likely to have leaks, enabling them to improve their productivity. The project has been an…

Discovery Bank today released a special report which shows South Africans take up to 29 years to change their bank accounts – that’s roughly 70% longer than the British and double the time of Americans. Titled “The application of shared value banking: A focus on interest rates and the potential benefits for South Africans,” the report showed that younger clients, and those who are digitally engaged, are 20% more likely to change their banks than the average banking client in South Africa. The bank’s research highlighted the impact of three major financial trends which are having a positive effect to…

Dimension Data has appointed Nompumelelo Mokou as the Managing Director for its Southern Africa business. Her appointment is effective 1 April 2021. Mokou joined Dimension Data in 2016 and has most recently headed up its Intelligent Customer Experience business for the Middle East and Africa, where she achieved significant market share, revenue and profitable growth. “The increasing focus on business transformation and digitisation among our clients, coupled with the unique assets combined during the One Dimension Data integration last year creates significant differentiation and opportunities for us in our biggest market. I am very excited about the future of this…

Oppo Reno5, the perfect gaming phone, is now available in South Africa, exclusively at Vodacom and MTN stores. Oppo said the Reno5 is geared to offer an alternative option to the growing number of South Africans that are quickly adapting to an online method of working, earning and living. The latest smartphone was officially launched today in South Africa. The starting price for Reno5 is R14 999.00. It promises to provide the fastest charging phone in the market. “With a built-in output charging pin, the device gets to 100% in just 36 minutes safely, to ensure better usage and functionality…

Asus is looking for South Africa’s top creative talent to kick start their careers with R100,000 in cash together with some epic prizes. They are calling all types of creatives and anything goes as long as it can fit into a ninety-second to three-minute video. “We don’t care if you are keen to do an Ariana cover, drop your own original track, do a standup routine or if you want to show us an interpretive dance take on ‘War and Peace’” says Asus Systems Country Marketing Manager, Juan Mouton. “As long as you are original, so we don’t want to…

Data from multinational research firm BrandsEye painted a bad picture of Rain as the worst mobile network in South Africa. BrandsEye today released its latest SA Telcos Sentiment Index, which analysed about two million social media posts about telco providers: Cell C, MTN, Rain, Telkom, and Vodacom throughout the year. The index found that some telcos received significantly more negativity on social media platforms than others. Each post received a sentiment rating – positive, neural, or negative – which was used to calculate a Net Sentiment ranking for each telco. BrandsEye said newcomer Rain ranked last, scoring over 20 percentage…

A new IBM study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) revealed that 84% of South African C-Suite are either pursuing or planning hybrid cloud strategies. They believe that hybrid cloud strategies are vital to their organization’s future. According to the study, C-Suite executives in South Africa are prioritising the implementation of hybrid cloud strategies to benefit from flexibility, cost savings, testing and development, as well as disaster recovery. While the study highlights this growing shift towards the cloud a year on from the initial lockdown which saw businesses of all sizes across the country adopt remote work strategies -further adoption…

Following National Water Week, which ran from 15 to 22 March in South Africa, Vodacom would like to reiterate its call to all South Africans to join them in protecting and conserving the country’s water resources by using water sparingly. South Africa is a water-scarce country and the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature has identified it as one of the 30 driest countries in the world. Rapidly growing urban areas are placing heavy pressure on water resources. Climate change is also having a devastating impact on the country’s water supplies. In response to this, Vodacom has implemented water-saving strategies…

Shoprite has launched its own mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), called K’nect Mobile, offering competitive rates and several other rewards to customers. The prepaid cellular network has partnered with digital enabler FREI One Digital, and piggybacks off the mobile network infrastructure of Cell C, whose roaming partnership with MTN provides award-winning coverage. K’nect Mobile offers 100MB free data for three months, and flat call and data rates. Shoprite, Checkers and Usave customers will be rewarded with free data and airtime. And data is zero-rated for selected apps and websites in the Group’s ecosystem. Customers will earn extra if they are Xtra…