TCS - The TechCentral Show

TechCentral, the publisher of South Africa’s leading business technology podcasts, is thrilled to announce the launch of TCS Legends.

The new show will feature interviews with (and about) some of the leading figures who helped shape South Africa’s technology industry into what it is today.

As the show’s name implies, we’ll be interviewing leading figures who achieved great things in – and for – the tech sector in South Africa.

From PCs to IT services and software to telecoms, TCS Legends features some of the leading figures in the industry over the last 30 years.

With season 1 launching later in February, TCS Legends is a by-invitation-only, editorially driven tech show that builds on TechCentral’s credible, market-leading multimedia productions, including the TechCentral Show (TCS) and TCS+.

TCS Legends is powered by Mitel. For all your unified communications and customer experience needs, visit Mitel.com.

Andile Ngcaba’s Convergence Partners last week announced it was buying storied South African IT services group Datacentrix from Alviva Holdings for an undisclosed sum.

Datacentrix’s long-serving CEO, Ahmed Mahomed, joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to discuss the acquisition, how it happened, why Alviva decided to sell and what the future holds for the company.

In the show, Mahomed unpacks:

• Datacentrix’s history, when it was founded, its JSE listing and the acquisition by Alviva;

• The business’s key focus areas today;

• What the Convergence Partners deal means for the future of Datacentrix;

• How Datacentrix will work with Ngcaba; and

• Whether the company might head back to the JSE at some point.

Don’t miss the discussion!

Kena Health took top honours at the recent MTN Business App of the Year Awards. Its chief technology officer, Pheello Maboea, tells the TechCentral Show (TCS) about the telehealth start-up’s journey so far.

Founded by Saul Kornik in 2021, Kena Health aims to improve the reach of quality healthcare services by digitising access to primary healthcare professionals.

The TCS interview, hosted by TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu, delves into:

• Barriers to telehealth adoption in South Africa and how new entrants are legitimising the industry;

• The challenges of designing applications for two very distinct audiences – highly technical medical staff on one hand and vulnerable patients on the other;

• How the company approaches talent retention and recruitment in what can be described as a seller’s market for technical skills;

• How emergent technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence are going to disrupt healthcare provision; and

• What winning the MTN Business App of the Year means for the start-up.

Don’t miss a fascinating conversation on the future of healthcare.

There has been considerable noise about the launch – or otherwise – of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service in South Africa, much of it conjecture. What’s the real story?

To unpack what exactly is required of SpaceX-launched Starlink to launch in South Africa – including the rules around black economic empowerment (BEE) – the TechCentral Show spoke to Dominic Cull, a legal expert on the subject.

Cull, who serves as the regulatory adviser to the Internet Service Providers’ Association (Ispa), shares some surprising insights into the process.

Topics tackled by Cull in the discussion include:

• Who is really to blame for Starlink’s failure to launch in South Africa so far;

• What the law really says about BEE and the issuing of telecommunications licences?

• What Icasa’s licensing regime looks like, and which licence types Starlink needs to apply for to launch its services in South Africa.

• Why there is an artificial restriction on the issuing of new licences – and why this makes no sense anymore.

• How Icasa’s “type approvals” for communications equipment work and what they’re for.

• Why Ispa members are keen to work with Starlink.

Don’t miss a fascinating discussion that clears up some of the misconceptions in the market about Starlink in South Africa.

In this episode of the TechCentral Show, author, marketer and consultant GG Alcock chats to Nkosinathi Ndlovu about how South Africa’s informal economy is being digitised.

Alcock’s background as a white boy growing up in rural Msinga, KwaZulu-Natal has helped him develop a deep cultural understanding of township life and the way business is conducted there.

Indeed, he has built his career as a marketer and consultant based on his intimate understanding of the township economies.

In the show, Alcock shares some of his personal history, speaks about his earliest innovations and gives detailed insight into how the adoption of digital technologies has progressed in South Africa’s informal economy in recent years.

The conversation delves into:

• How the Covid-19 pandemic influenced the adoption of digital payments in the informal economy;

• Why card payments are outpacing banking apps, third-party payment platforms like Zapper and even PayShap in townships;

• Data-driven insights about what informal business owners really think about ditching cash for digital; and

• The outlook for digitisation and payments in the informal economy.

Don’t miss a fascinating conversation!

TechCentral reported on Friday that South African cryptocurrency platforms Revix and BitFund are joining forces and, together with Austria’s Coinpanion, have formed a new alternative investment platform called Altify.

Revix founder and now Altify CEO Sean Sanders joins Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show to unpack the merger, how it came about, and what Altify hopes to do in the alternative investment space not only in South Africa but the broader Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

In its new form, Altify will continue to offer the crypto investment products that Revix, Coinpanion and BitFund became known for, including a wide selection of ETF-style crypto bundles, along with other alternative finance products.

He said the recent downturn in the crypto market acted as a catalyst for the merger and accelerated Altify’s expansion into non-crypto investment options.

According to Sanders, these market dynamics have also primed the environment for consolidation among retail investment platforms, especially in the crypto space. “Altify is leaning into these opportunities and is engaging with other investment platforms in the UAE, the UK and Europe who could join Altify over the coming months.”

Don’t miss the interview!

Aidan Johnson, appointed by Massmart to lead on-demand delivery platform OneCart, believes South Africa is on the cusp of huge growth in online shopping – and that everything is to play for.

Johnson, who joins Duncan McLeod on this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), talks about the OneCart business, why Massmart bought it and where it’s headed.

The conversation delves into:

• Why OneCart works with third-party retailers that compete with Walmart-owned Massmart, the parent of brands such as Makro, Builders and Game;

• How OneCart fits into Massmart’s overarching e-commerce strategy for South Africa;

• The state of the e-commerce market in South Africa, including the on-demand segment, and the impact that Covid has had on its development;

• With the launch of Amazon.com’s retail marketplace operators in South Africa looming large, the impact this will have on the local retail industry – are local retailers ready to take on the global e-commerce giant?;

• The outlook for e-commerce growth in South Africa for the rest of the 2020s and what needs to be overcome for online sales as a percentage of total retail sales to reach 15%, from 5% now.

Don’t miss a fascinating discussion about online shopping in South Africa and how local retailers – including Massmart and OneCart – are preparing for significant disruption to the retail sector in the years ahead.

ShotSpotter, a technology that “listens” for gunshots to help law enforcement authorities pinpoint potential criminal activity, has been deployed in high-crime parts of Cape Town for some years.

In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Duncan McLeod chat to Tom Chittum, senior vice president for forensic services at SoundThinking, the company that owns the acoustic gunshot detection technology, to learn about how it’s being deployed not only in South Africa but in cities around the world.

In the interview, Chittum chats about:

• How ShotSpotter is being used in Cape Town;

• How the technology works – its advantages and drawbacks;

• How law enforcement agencies use ShotSpotter to fight crime; and

• How ShotSpotter is being used in US cities to tackle gun violence.

Don’t miss a fascinating discussion.

The future of finance is on the blockchain.

That’s according to Connie Bloem, co-founder and MD of Mesh.trade, who was speaking to the TechCentral Show (TCS) about alternative (AltFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi).

Mesh is owned by 42Markets Group, which recently secured a R182-million funding round from technology investor Convergence Partners.

Much of that funding will be used in Mesh’s expansion plans.

Bloem, who lives in Paris, told TCS that Mesh is attempted to serve as a bridge between the world of traditional finance, also known as TradFi, and AltFi and DeFi.

Among other topics, Bloem chats about what these changes mean for ordinary investors.

Don’t miss a great discussion!

Earlier this month, Cape Town-based fintech Peach Payments announced it had secured US$30-million (R570-million) in a fundraising round led by Apis Partners.

In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Rahul Jain, co-founder of CEO of Peach Payments, tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the funding round and what the company plans to use the money to do.

In the interview, Jain unpacks:

* His background growing up in India and how his career brought him to South Africa;

* What Peach Payments does and why;

* The company’s business model; and

* Its growth plans, including expansion outside South Africa.

Jain also explains why Peach Payments went the private equity route with the latest funding round.

Don’t miss the interview!