Author: Staff Writer

Following on from its first successful hackathon, Empire Partner Foundation’s (EPF) Tech Hub will close out the year with a digital hackathon focused primarily on solving complex challenges that municipalities face today. This Digital Gauteng City Region (GCR) hackathon will take place over the 12th and 13th December 2020 in Illovo, Johannesburg. Municipalities today face a plethora of challenges in being able to effectively provide services to their residents while also increasing their own level of efficiencies. This hackathon will throw open to developers a number of problem statements allowing participants a free reign to innovatively solve these challenges in…

Truecaller today released findings from its Truecaller Insights report, a look into the top 20 countries affected by spam calls in 2020. With the pandemic breaking out earlier this year and countries going into various lockdowns there has been a significant change in communication behaviour and patterns of spam around the world. The fourth edition of the report reveals the significant shift in which countries are now receiving the most spam calls. A closer look at spam calls in South Africa Last year, South Africa ranked in as the sixth-highest spammed country in the world and this year is…

HP today announced the appointment of Bradley Pulford as VP & Managing Director for HP Africa, effective December 1, 2020. His responsibilities include supporting customers and partners across the region, country leadership and the profitable growth of HP’s Printing, Personal Systems and Services businesses. Pulford will also lead several ongoing strategic initiatives for HP in Africa. Among these are advancing the company’s diversity and inclusion vision across the continent, supporting education projects that remove barriers to doing business for young entrepreneurs, and broadly deploying future technologies and innovations, including VR and 3D solutions. Joining from Dell Technologies where he held…

Having run a successful classroom and teacher based High School for a number of years, whilst achieving 100% matric pass rate and culminating in an award for “top school in the district” Ivy Academy has now gone fully digital! “Our extensive experience, gained over many years, together with lessons learned, positions us uniquely in introducing a leading state of the art high school in the cloud that actually solves the various challenges associated with digital learning,” says Chief Executive Eli Katz. “This is achieved by providing the technology, teachers and proactive support to ensure student success.  A key differentiator is…

The COVID-19 grant will only be paid until the end of January 2021. SASSA has determined a cut-off date for lodging appeals in respect of declined COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grants. The purpose is to strengthen administrative controls in the management of this grant and to give effect to a conducive environment for accounting. An opportunity to appeal a SASSA decision to decline your COVID-19 SRD grant application that was submitted to SASSA between the month of May 2020 – October 2020 will be closed with effect from 11 December 2020. Appeals for applications made during the extension period…

Christmas is a time of joyfulness and of time spent with family. Avon Justine has stepped in to make sure that it would be no different for patients at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital (NMCH). The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, (NMCF) in partnership with global beauty and cosmetics company Avon Justine, have bought some festive cheer to the children at its flagship project, NMCH, when they presented them with a Christmas hamper comprising of toys and goodies to the value of R50 000. The cheque handover and the donation of Christmas hampers took place at the hospital premises in Parktown, Johannesburg,…

South African-based mobile phone company Vodacom announced today that it has partnered with GSMA to drive the digital inclusion of persons with disabilities. Today, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD), GSMA Assistive Tech has launched the ‘Principles for driving digital inclusion of people with disabilities,’ a framework for action aimed at increasing the digital inclusion of people with disabilities. “Vodacom’s vision of connecting everyone for a better future has enabled Vodacom to embrace the digital inclusion of consumers with disabilities for more than a decade.  We are excited to join the GSMA’s Assistive Tech Programme by becoming a…

Vodacom Mpumalanga Region partnered with BPG Langfontein, a farming business that employs the majority of the people living in Wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga province to create SA’s first smartphone only town. In September 2019, Vodacom deployed 3G and 4G sites in Wakkerstroom and later moved over 1500 farm workers from using 2G feature phones to 3G and 4G enabled smartphones. In fact, Vodacom’s commitment to accelerate network coverage for people who live in Wakkerstroom has already yielded a great number of results. Within months of Vodacom having moved farm workers in the area to faster 4G network, Wakkerstroom enjoys 100% internet…

Planet42, an Estonian car subscription company that helps individuals ignored by banks to get access to a personal vehicle, has announced a $10 million (R152 million) raise from US-based Lendable Inc, an institutional debt investor. To date, Planet 42 has bought and delivered over 2,000 second-hand cars in South Africa, its primary market.  “Our ambition is to make mobility accessible to everyone who can afford it, including the people that banks deem ‘blacklisted’, which comprise more than 90% of our clientele,” says Eerik Oja, the CEO and co-founder of Planet42. “We’ve already signed up over 300 car dealerships across South…

African micro-insurance FinTech aYo Holdings has broken through the 10 million customer mark in under four years after starting operations. aYo’s new CEO Marius Botha says the milestone is set to trigger a period of further growth. MTN, Africa’s largest mobile phone group, has increased its shareholding in aYo through acquisition of additional shares. MTN now owns 75% of aYo, it was disclosed last week Monday. For more read: MTN INCREASES STAKE IN MOBILE MICRO-INSURANCE FIRM AYO In 2017, South Africa’s third-biggest insurer Momentum Metropolitan and MTN launched aYo. aYo provides you with a fast, convenient, and easy to use insurance right on your…