TCS+

Africa is by no means going to be left behind in technology and connectivity, according to chip developer MediaTek.

5G, it believes, is going to revolutionise the capabilities of mobile handsets, drive home automation and bring feature-rich capabilities to our vehicles.

In this episode of TCS+, TechCentral’s James Erasmus spoke to Rami Osman, director for corporate sales and marketing at MediaTek Middle East and Africa, for insight into this topic and more.

Osman talks about the ubiquity of the mobile phone, but also about how he and his team are supporting the local telecommunications industry, including mobile network operators and infrastructure providers, as it works to cater for growing demand for reliable, high-speed connectivity.

Don’t miss the discussion.

* TCS+ episodes are paid for by the party concerned

The need to deploy servers and supporting software applications hasn’t changed, but the way these deployments are done has.

The days when teams of highly skilled consultants and technicians entered a customer’s environment and made a slew of changes are over.

It’s clear that enterprises are looking for ways to deploy their IT infrastructure remotely and quickly, which has resulted in a fast transition from on-premises to cloud (or a combination of the two), faster time to market and a more rapid return on investment.

Heath Huxtable, executive head at Braintree (Vox, part of Vivica Holdings), says it is important to take all stakeholders, including end users, along for the journey, which leads to a more engaged and empowered client.

Huxtable joined host James Erasmus on TechCentral’s TCS+ show to share his advice on alleviating the concerns many executives have about shifting to the cloud.

Huxtable talks about many practical implications and cited numerous industries where the change from on-premises servers to the cloud can be deployed, not only remotely, but also with a very flexible and scalable architecture.

This reduces “bill shock” and softens the impact of the overused and feared word “change”, he says.

Speed has become the lifeblood of businesses worldwide and, as new technologies evolve, so does the need for more efficient and rapid deployment in the most cost-effective manner possible.

Braintree assists companies in meeting their infrastructure needs quickly, without the slow and capital-intensive process of building company-owned infrastructure.

The company’s rapid server deployment is not based on a one-size-fits-all approach, but rather looks at each customer’s requirements to ensure a solution that works for them. This, in turn, allays fears customers may have when embracing new technologies.

Having been at the vanguard of the fintech movement in South Africa, Trustlink is rebranding and repositioning itself as two independent businesses, now called Omnea and Tegra. With this move, the company aims to become omnicompetent, omnipresent and omnichannel with a focused approach for each business entity.

Dr Philip Tromp, founder and chairman of Xea Capital, and Deon Tromp, CEO of Omnea, joined TechCentral’s TCS Impact Series show to delve into the history of Omnea, as well as the strategy for the immediate future.

Dr Tromp has more than 25 years of experience in payment systems innovation, both in South Africa and abroad. In the 1990s, as GM of business systems and technology at the South African Reserve Bank, he led an industry initiative to modernise the South African National Payment System.

This ground-breaking exercise introduced, amongst other things, a real-time payment system (Samos) between South African banks. The project also resulted in the promulgation of the first South African National Payment System Act and a self-regulating structure (the Payments Association of South Africa) to regulate the payments industry and open up competition in the provision of payment services to non-banks.

Deon Tromp has also enjoyed a long and varied career in financial services, with expertise in compliance, credit, risk management and capital management. During his career, he has conceptualised, designed, built and implemented methodologies, processes and systems to address complex risk management and regulatory challenges. He was also a member of the Financial Services Conduct Authority’s steering committee responsible for the development and implementation of the Solvency Assessment and Management (SAM) supervisory approach for prudential regulation.

With their and their team’s combined expertise and focus on adhering to regulatory and compliance measures, Omnea is well-positioned to enable the financial services industry from a back-office automation perspective, right through to the development of frontend payment applications.

Omnea, they said in this episode of TCS Impact Series, is also levelling the playing field for fintech through an open digital platform. Their position as a “TechFin” enables them to provide the market with access to the best of financial services and the lowest negotiated rates, agnostic to all traditional banking systems in the market through the technology and software they have developed and integrated since inception. As a trusted partner and leading fintech advisory, they are currently enabling over 450 000 individuals and businesses with payment services across South Africa. They are poised to, in Dr Tromp’s words, “make a real difference to society”.

Financial institutions, large corporates and smaller businesses will all benefit from Omnea’s core tenet -- to provision and enable fair payments across the globe. An important shift in Omnea’s messaging is that it is a TechFin and sees itself as a modern brand offering modern solutions to non-traditional financial services providers to enter the payment space.

Watch or listen below to a fascinating conversation between these two fintech leaders.

About Omnea

Omnea forms part of XEA Capital group and provides businesses with access to secure and reliable payment platforms across Africa.

Founded in 1999, Omnea – formerly known as Trustlink – spearheaded the fintech movement by being the first TechFin business in Africa to provide enablement services and integrations to support their customers’ growth in the fintech Industry.

Over 20 years later, we are now a trusted payment partner and leading fintech advisory in Africa that enables over 450 000 individuals and businesses with payment services. At Omnea, we believe that TechFin is the catalyst for growth in Africa, and by enabling the fintech indu...

Rifling through filing cabinets in search of the one critical file that has brought your business to a standstill is an arduous and painful task that nobody enjoys.

Fortunately, those days are over. Ricoh South Africa is now an expert in the field of electronic records management.

In addition, the company was recently awarded membership status of the exclusive DocuWare Diamond Club in recognition of its exceptional performance. This included having exceeded revenue targets through client onboarding, growth, satisfaction and retention.

DocuWare is document management software that automates business processes and workflows by electronically managing and sharing documents irrespective of their format or source.

TechCentral’s James Erasmus was joined in-studio by Marcell Otto, digital services product manager at Ricoh South Africa, who delved into the ways DocuWare solves the document management challenges that local businesses face today.

In the episode of TCS Impact Series, Otto discussed how using DocuWare can help entities of every size, and across all verticals, connect their documents and people from anywhere.

In fact, 80% of DocuWare’s clients are cloud based, so the solution delivers smart digital workflow and document control that streamlines business performance and boosts productivity. Ultimately, he revealed how DocuWare facilitates more efficient use of resources and reduces human error. Through preconfigured tools, it can digitally transform the way organisations capture, process and access content from day one.

Watch or listen to the interview as Otto and his team at Ricoh take you through a journey of modernisation.

Unreliable power supply due to excessive load shedding has most South Africans worried about the future. However, every consumer can make a difference by using technology.

For example, automation can make the job of managing and saving energy less expensive and arduous. Similarly, making use of the internet of things (IoT), machine learning and managed services can also have a positive impact on any business’s energy usage.

Guardian Eye, a monitoring technology leader, offers cloud-based managed services that address organisations’ energy requirements. TechCentral spoke with Rodney Taylor, the company’s MD, about how its consultation services have guided large enterprises, particularly those in the retail space, but also entities from a wide range of industries.

Guardian Eye offers assessments, gap analyses and energy consumption forecasting to get to the root of customers’ energy challenges. All these actions help businesses learn how they can use technology to optimise their energy consumption patterns.

As a data-led organisation, Guardian Eye helps customers monitor workflows on Web or mobile apps, helping them to anticipate equipment failure before it becomes a problem.

In addition, the company’s platform monitors valuable assets against the risk of theft and damage. In many instances, pre-emptive warning signals are automatically triggered and sent directly to the security companies to act on.

The message is clear: energy today is a luxury, and we all need to be smart about how we manage it. If you want to use energy more efficiently and effectively, this conversation is worth your time.

Guardian Eye - your gateway to integrated, intelligent, informed and improved living. A Vivica Holdings Company.

* TCS Impact Series episodes are paid for by the party concerned

Amid intense disruption in recent years, cybercrime has skyrocketed as attackers continue, and even ramp up, their schemes in times of crisis. And as the threat landscape evolves, cybersecurity solutions need to evolve, too.

Concurrently, while C-level executives’ minds are used to looking at things through a business lens, this isn’t the case for cybersecurity leaders, whose approach tends to focus more narrowly on technical objectives.

However, security professionals need to support the business and enable it to do what it needs to do to succeed. At the same time, they must protect the organisation from the confidentiality, integrity, availability and legal impacts of a breach that could prevent the business from achieving its strategic goals.

This means that today’s chief information security officers need to wear many hats. Hyperconnected workplaces mean CISOs need to be mediators, investigators and highly tech-savvy individuals, too. Most importantly, they need to stop being enforcers, and start being influencers, and do this while ensuring their organisation isn’t the latest target of an attack.

In today’s podcast, we delved into how all of the leaders need to work together to drive a culture of collaboration and prevention, instead of viewing each other as opponents across the boardroom. Doing this successfully will result in a better flow of communication and greater transparency among all stakeholders, resulting in stronger defences and reduced exposure to risks.

This was the at the heart of our conversation with Cyber1 Solutions and Next DLP.

The conversation inevitably turned to the security skills and tools that are needed to protect organisations both large and small. It became clear that for any cybersecurity strategy to be effective, it needs to be delivered by people with deep knowledge and expertise. These people need to understand how to manage vulnerabilities and build cybersecurity strategies that are backed by real threat intelligence and use the right technology at the right time to make a real difference to the business.

Our guests in this episode of TCS Impact Series are Jayson O’Reilly, MD at Cyber1 Solutions, Troy Gabel, chief revenue officer for Next DLP, and Fallon Steyn, regional sales manager for the Middle East and Africa for Next DLP.

Don’t miss this information discussion!

Huawei Technologies has officially launched its flagship Mate50 Pro smartphone in South Africa, and the company’s Akhram Mohamed is in the studio to tell TechCentral’s audience all about it.

Mohamed, who is vice president of operations at Huawei Consumer Business Group South Africa, unpacks the key features of the Mate50 Pro, including its Ultra Aperture XMAGE camera system and Kunlun Glass, which greatly enhances screen drop resistance – and we put it to the test rather dramatically in this episode of TCS Impact Series.

The smartphone, available through network operators or the Huawei online store, features a distinctive new “Space Ring” design for the rear camera system and comes in two different types of rear cover: silver or black glass, or a premium orange vegan leather.

And, no, thanks to US sanctions on China, there is no official Google Mobile Services support for the phone – but Mohamed explains in the interview why it’s now easy to access apps and services through Huawei's AppGallery.

Other key features of the new Mate50 Pro include:

* IP68-rated water resistance;

* 6.74-inch Huawei FullView Display with a screen resolution of 2 616x1 212 pixels and a high refresh rate of 120Hz and 1 440Hz PWM dimming to reduce flickering and relieve eye fatigue;

* A 4 700mAh battery, despite a slim-body design;

* 66W fast-charging via cable or 50W wireless fast-charging; and

* Low-battery Emergency Mode that activates when the battery level falls to 1%, with SuperEnergy Boosting that allows the Mate50 Pro to extend standby time by three hours, or 12 minutes of call time.

The Huawei Mate50 Pro is available in South Africa from all network providers and is priced from R24 999 for the 256GB and R26 999 for the 512GB version.

Although it’s not easy to predict the year ahead, one thing is certain: cybercrime will become more prevalent and will, if it’s not already, become a risk agenda for company boards.

Anna Collard, senior vice president of content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa, recently attended the World Economic Forum’s annual security meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, where she met with some of the world’s leading authorities in the tech space.

As a global influencer and expert in this field, she brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into what we should all be more aware of. Vigilance, she says in this Impact Series episode, is the name of the game.

Collard explains how important it is to collaborate to prevent security incidents, especially given that organisations are all facing similar adversaries. After all, no business is an island.

Collard reiterates in the show what she has said in previous episodes: the importance of identifying existing and new people in and around your business who demonstrate a promising attitude towards cybersecurity, an attitude that will in turn form valuable skills and help build a digital culture around your organisation’s security needs.

Cybercriminals are limbering up for another year of extortion and ransomware as they seek new ways to hack the world. We don’t need a crystal ball, says Collard. Rather, we need collaboration, vigilance and a focused workforce.

Don’t miss the discussion!

Cognitive overload is leading to obvious security vulnerabilities as the wave of cybercrime gets worse. We can’t risk being hacked as a result of being distracted, yet many employees risk making critical mistakes, especially if they are overstressed.

Can we promote a happier, healthier and safer working environment by taking a moment to quieten down, focus and pay attention to our actions.

KnowBe4 Africa's Anna Collard believes we can. She returns to TechCentral’s Impact Series to chat about some of the mindfulness techniques and tools that can help individuals and companies be better prepared to tackle the risks.

As senior vice president of content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa, Collard shares her insights into people's susceptibility to social engineering tricks and how to counter them.

Being distracted, and falsely believing we can multitask, is an obvious weakness that is being exploited by attackers, she says.

Don’t miss the discussion, and follow Collard on LinkedIn or visit www.knowbe4.com to learn more.

The constraints on the global and local supply of critical components, compounded by numerous logistics issues, has made 2022 a challenging one for the ICT industry.

Although industry players have made every effort to deliver, when there are no parts there really are no parts!

TechCentral’s Impact Series jumped into conversation with Riaan Graham, sales director of sub-Saharan Africa at Ruckus Networks, and Eugene Botes, product manager at Pinnacle Datanet, for a frank discussion about where the industry’s going headed into 2023.

The good news, Graham and Botes say, is that we are likely to leapfrog certain technologies as an unintended consequence of the supply constraints and that 2023 will be a better year for us all. Not sunshine and roses, but better. Production has realigned with demand; the backlogs in supply chains have eased; and balance is being restored.

An example of an unintended consequence is that companies that had been planning the shift to Wi-Fi 6 may be lucky they had to sit it out. Wi-Fi 6 and 6E (also known as the wireless standard 802.11ax) promised big improvements in wireless Internet speeds. But Wi-Fi 7 is already around the corner, says Graham, promising even more: greater efficiencies in network delivery and wireless transmission, and a greater ability to augment AI and robotic digitisation initiatives. Find out more about Ruckus Networks’ solutions here.

Complemented by numerous peripheral services and efficiencies, such as cloud-managed services and the ability to support the increasing risk of network users wanting to bring their own devices (BYOD) onto enterprise networks safely, Ruckus will specify, develop and deliver Wi-Fi 7 solutions.

Botes emphasises the importance of planning now and applying a well-scoped logic to what ultimately is a unique set of product offerings that Ruckus can provide. Learn more about Pinnacle Datanet and the solutions offered by both Rucks and Datanet in this episode of Impact Series.

* Impact Series episodes are paid for by the party or parties concerned