https://techcentral.co.za/ We are South Africa's market leader in business technology news. We produce ethical and responsible tech journalism that you can trust. Other en Thu, 11 Sep 2014 08:31:06 +0000 Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:26:00 +0200 30 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss iono.fm 2.5.3.0 NewsCentral Media feeds@iono.fm (Feed Manager) https://cdn.iono.fm/files/p186/logo_186_20250908_202246_1400.jpeg https://techcentral.co.za/ We are South Africa's market leader in business technology news. TechCentral episodic TechCentral duncan@techcentral.co.za false ZA https://iono.fm/e/1732720 https://iono.fm/e/1732720 In this episode of TCS+, Natalie van der Merwe, head of telephony at Vox, unpacks why an omnichannel approach matters, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Topics covered in the discussion include:
* What "omnichannel" means and why businesses need it now
* The benefits for SMEs and their customers
* How customer expectations of business communication have changed
* Why continuity across channels matters to customers
* What a poor or disconnected experience can cost in loyalty and reputation
* How a fragmented communication ecosystem disrupts a business internally
* Whether SMEs are right to see omnichannel as complex
* The role of AI in business communications
* Why customers should be involved in designing new channels
* The regulatory considerations businesses should keep in mind about the kinds of data exchanged on different platforms
Van der Merwe also explains how to make the business case for investing in omnichannel, and advises SMEs on how to start improving their communication ecosystems.

TCS+ episodes are sponsored TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:26:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Vox on AI, data rules and omnichannel communication for SMEs 0 0 TechCentral full 14:18 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1732718 https://iono.fm/e/1732718 In this episode of TCS+, Natalie van der Merwe, head of telephony at Vox, unpacks why an omnichannel approach matters, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Topics covered in the discussion include:
* What "omnichannel" means and why businesses need it now
* The benefits for SMEs and their customers
* How customer expectations of business communication have changed
* Why continuity across channels matters to customers
* What a poor or disconnected experience can cost in loyalty and reputation
* How a fragmented communication ecosystem disrupts a business internally
* Whether SMEs are right to see omnichannel as complex
* The role of AI in business communications
* Why customers should be involved in designing new channels
* The regulatory considerations businesses should keep in mind about the kinds of data exchanged on different platforms
Van der Merwe also explains how to make the business case for investing in omnichannel, and advises SMEs on how to start improving their communication ecosystems.

TCS+ episodes are sponsored ]]> Technology Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:23:00 +0200 0 0 Vox on AI, data rules and omnichannel communication for SMEs 0 0 TechCentral full 14:18 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1732048 https://iono.fm/e/1732048
Metacom has spent 25 years designing its own routers and running private networks for some of Africa's biggest retailers, without a cent of venture capital.

In this episode of the TechCentral Show, founder Réan van Niekerk tells Fanie van Rooyen how the Cape Town company came to connect more than 6 000 ATMs, every Pep store in Africa and, by his account, well over half the communications Eskom uses to monitor and control electricity distribution.

He explains why Metacom designs its hardware in-house instead of buying white-label Asian routers, and why one box per store works better than equipment from four suppliers. He also says satellite services such as Starlink would be a "wonderful supplier", not a threat.
Van Niekerk also discusses enterprise technology spending in 2026, the AI-driven memory shortages that now force Metacom to order some components a year ahead, the company's cautious approach to AI, which keeps humans on its support lines, and why Africa is not one market. TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 11:12:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | The Cape Town firm quietly connecting Eskom, Pep and 6 000 ATMs 0 0 TechCentral full 36:28 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1732047 https://iono.fm/e/1732047
Metacom has spent 25 years designing its own routers and running private networks for some of Africa's biggest retailers, without a cent of venture capital.

In this episode of the TechCentral Show, founder Réan van Niekerk tells Fanie van Rooyen how the Cape Town company came to connect more than 6 000 ATMs, every Pep store in Africa and, by his account, well over half the communications Eskom uses to monitor and control electricity distribution.

He explains why Metacom designs its hardware in-house instead of buying white-label Asian routers, and why one box per store works better than equipment from four suppliers. He also says satellite services such as Starlink would be a "wonderful supplier", not a threat.
Van Niekerk also discusses enterprise technology spending in 2026, the AI-driven memory shortages that now force Metacom to order some components a year ahead, the company's cautious approach to AI, which keeps humans on its support lines, and why Africa is not one market. ]]> Technology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 11:11:00 +0200 0 0 The Cape Town firm quietly connecting Eskom, Pep and 6 000 ATMs 0 0 TechCentral full 36:28 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1731499 https://iono.fm/e/1731499
The pair unpack an Interpol report that found 92% of ransomware detections on the continent are in South Africa. Oehley explains that the country's high connectivity, big financial services sector and large mid-market are part of the reason, along with a tactical rather than proactive approach to security.

Den Hond explains how agentic AI systems can automate the attack chain, adapt when an exploit fails and never tire, putting small and medium-sized enterprises squarely in the crosshairs.

Watch the video

The pair also explain why the time between a vulnerability being identified and exploited has collapsed, why attackers are increasingly stealing data rather than encrypting it and why cyber insurance often doesn't cover the costs that hurt most.

Other points discussed include:

Why SMEs that supply bigger companies are a back door for attackers, including the recent breach of a group of South African insurers;
The hidden costs of a breach, including downtime averaging 22 days, lost income, idle payroll and reputational damage;
A customer that put off a security purchase because of the cost and was hit months later for much more;
How to measure the financial impact of cyber risk, and why the return-on-investment argument matters at board level;
Proactive versus reactive security, and why there is no silver bullet;
Whether South Africa's regulators are keeping up, and the prospect of directors' liability; and
Why building a 24/7 security operations centre in-house rarely makes financial sense

Don't miss this practical conversation about turning cyber risk into terms that decision-makers understand. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:34:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Boards are underestimating the cost of a cyberattack, says Arctic Wolf 0 0 TechCentral full 23:37 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1731497 https://iono.fm/e/1731497
The pair unpack an Interpol report that found 92% of ransomware detections on the continent are in South Africa. Oehley explains that the country's high connectivity, big financial services sector and large mid-market are part of the reason, along with a tactical rather than proactive approach to security.

Den Hond explains how agentic AI systems can automate the attack chain, adapt when an exploit fails and never tire, putting small and medium-sized enterprises squarely in the crosshairs.

Watch the video

The pair also explain why the time between a vulnerability being identified and exploited has collapsed, why attackers are increasingly stealing data rather than encrypting it and why cyber insurance often doesn't cover the costs that hurt most.

Other points discussed include:

Why SMEs that supply bigger companies are a back door for attackers, including the recent breach of a group of South African insurers;
The hidden costs of a breach, including downtime averaging 22 days, lost income, idle payroll and reputational damage;
A customer that put off a security purchase because of the cost and was hit months later for much more;
How to measure the financial impact of cyber risk, and why the return-on-investment argument matters at board level;
Proactive versus reactive security, and why there is no silver bullet;
Whether South Africa's regulators are keeping up, and the prospect of directors' liability; and
Why building a 24/7 security operations centre in-house rarely makes financial sense

Don't miss this practical conversation about turning cyber risk into terms that decision-makers understand. ]]> Technology Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:32:00 +0200 0 0 Boards are underestimating the cost of a cyberattack, says Arctic Wolf 0 0 TechCentral full 23:37 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1727856 https://iono.fm/e/1727856 Fresh from the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) expo at Air Force Base Waterkloof, Du Plessis explains what buyers were asking about most: drones of all sizes, data fusion and artificial intelligence. He sets out where a 1.5-tonne surveillance aircraft that can fly for more than 30 hours fits in a world of cheap, expendable drones like those used in Ukraine.

He also tackles the harder questions. Who decides who Milkor can sell to, and how do South Africa’s arms export controls work? Where does a human stay in control as drones carry guided missiles and become more autonomous? Are fears about “killer robots” overblown? And how does the 380 keep flying when GPS signals are jammed or spoofed?
Closer to home, Du Plessis says the SANDF is severely underfunded and that money, not interest, is what stands between the 380 and South Africa’s defence force and Border Management Authority. He warns that South Africa and the rest of the continent are not ready for cheap attack drones, but says the local defence industry has the capability to respond if government acts now.
The conversation also covers Milkor’s larger 780, its new agreement with European missile maker MBDA and how much of the 380 is built in Cape Town. TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 13 Oct 2026 09:11:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Drones, AI and the future of warfare, with Milkor's Daniel du Plessis 0 0 TechCentral full 39:14 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1727852 https://iono.fm/e/1727852 Speaking after the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) expo at Air Force Base Waterkloof in September, Du Plessis explains what buyers were asking about most: drones of all sizes, data fusion and AI. He sets out where a 1.5-tonne surveillance aircraft that can fly for more than 30 hours fits in a world of cheap, expendable drones like those used in Ukraine.
He also tackles the more difficult questions: who decides who Milkor can sell to, and how do South Africa's arms export controls work? Where does a human stay in control as drones carry guided missiles and become more autonomous? Are fears about "killer robots" overblown? And how does the 380 keep flying when GPS signals are jammed or spoofed?
Closer to home, Du Plessis says the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is severely underfunded, and that money, not interest, is what stands between the 380 and the SANDF and Border Management Authority. He warns that South Africa and the rest of the continent are not ready for cheap attack drones, but says the local defence industry can respond if government acts now.
The conversation also covers Milkor's larger 780, its new agreement with European missile maker MBDA and why about 99% of the 380 is built in Cape Town. ]]> Technology Tue, 13 Oct 2026 09:10:00 +0200 0 0 Drones, AI and the future of warfare, with Milkor's Daniel du Plessis 0 0 TechCentral full 39:14 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1726603 https://iono.fm/e/1726603 Moolman, who took over in March after 23 years with Land Rover dealer groups, told Watts & Wheels' William Kelly that the brand's slow start since launching locally in 2024 has been written off. "What happened before is school fees," he said.
LDV, a name inherited from British van maker Leyland DAF Vans, is owned by China's state-controlled SAIC Motor. It launched with the T60 double cab alone and now sells close to 10 nameplates, from panel vans to the Terron 9 luxury double cab.
A recent shipment of just over 200 vehicles was sold before it docked, Moolman said, and one fleet customer has ordered 50 units from the next. LDV has 30 dealers countrywide, plus a parts and training centre in Gauteng.
First-half 2026 sales already exceed the full-year 2025 total, he said, and LDV expects to triple its 2025 volumes by December. He gave no unit numbers.
The newest addition is the T60 Utility single cab, launched in August from R299 900 for the 4x2 and R358 900 for the 4x4. It has a 120kW engine, a payload of up to 1 170kg, dual airbags and steel wheels, which fleets prefer because they can be beaten straight.
The local range is diesel only, but electric double cabs are on their way for certification testing. SAIC also builds electric panel vans and buses with up to 30 seats, which LDV may consider for South Africa. Moolman expects fleets on fixed 200km daily routes to choose smaller, lighter batteries over maximum range.
Don't miss the discussion. ]]> Automotive Fri, 09 Oct 2026 10:30:00 +0200 0 0 LDV's Gerhard Moolman on electric bakkies and fleets 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 26:23 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1726210 https://iono.fm/e/1726210 “I’d be ignorant to say that we would ignore any offer,” Chorley said on the latest episode of the TechCentral Show – watch or listen below. “I would hope to say that we will be the acquirer rather than being sold.”
Frogfoot has already bought a couple of small suburban operators and wants to acquire “as many of those smaller operators as possible”, he told show host Duncan McLeod. He expects somewhat larger networks, of more than 30 000 homes, to come up for sale in the next few years, followed in time by “a much bigger consolidation of one or two of the bigger ones”.
The mooted merger of Octotel and MetroFibre had been “going on for a while”, Chorley said, and he expected consolidation among suburban operators to continue.
Abraham van der Merwe, who leads Frogfoot, Vox and Hypa, said consolidation was inevitable because “infrastructure requires scale”. But he said Frogfoot was unlikely to be consolidated any time soon because its “long-term and patient” investors, among them the founders, intend to own the business for a very long time.
The two spoke after a DNI-led consortium invested in the businesses in a deal valuing them at R14.4-billion. Most of the money will go into townships, where Van der Merwe said fewer than two million of 12 million to 15 million homes have fibre. Frogfoot wants to lift its build rate from about 80 000 connections a year to 360 000.
That untapped market is also why Van der Merwe is not worried about operators overbuilding each other. Overbuilding splits market share and wrecks the economics, he said, and there is little reason to do it when so many homes have no fibre at all. It took about a decade to connect the 4.5 million homes in the suburbs; the township market is three times that size. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:01:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Frogfoot sees bigger fibre deals coming 0 0 TechCentral full 40:58 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1726209 https://iono.fm/e/1726209 “I’d be ignorant to say that we would ignore any offer,” Chorley said on the latest episode of the TechCentral Show – watch or listen below. “I would hope to say that we will be the acquirer rather than being sold.”
Frogfoot has already bought a couple of small suburban operators and wants to acquire “as many of those smaller operators as possible”, he told show host Duncan McLeod. He expects somewhat larger networks, of more than 30 000 homes, to come up for sale in the next few years, followed in time by “a much bigger consolidation of one or two of the bigger ones”.
The mooted merger of Octotel and MetroFibre had been “going on for a while”, Chorley said, and he expected consolidation among suburban operators to continue.
Abraham van der Merwe, who leads Frogfoot, Vox and Hypa, said consolidation was inevitable because “infrastructure requires scale”. But he said Frogfoot was unlikely to be consolidated any time soon because its “long-term and patient” investors, among them the founders, intend to own the business for a very long time.
The two spoke after a DNI-led consortium invested in the businesses in a deal valuing them at R14.4-billion. Most of the money will go into townships, where Van der Merwe said fewer than two million of 12 million to 15 million homes have fibre. Frogfoot wants to lift its build rate from about 80 000 connections a year to 360 000.
That untapped market is also why Van der Merwe is not worried about operators overbuilding each other. Overbuilding splits market share and wrecks the economics, he said, and there is little reason to do it when so many homes have no fibre at all. It took about a decade to connect the 4.5 million homes in the suburbs; the township market is three times that size. ]]> Technology Thu, 08 Oct 2026 11:56:00 +0200 0 0 Frogfoot sees bigger fibre deals coming 0 0 TechCentral full 40:58 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1724991 https://iono.fm/e/1724991 Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Sami said Vodacom’s chatbots and voice bots already handle a considerable share of customer calls, while AI tools help its human agents find information without jumping between systems.
“When I say it is the next big thing, it is not something that is happening in years. It’s something that is happening very soon,” he said. How autonomous those agents become, he added, depends on how much intelligence and orchestration sits behind them.
Watch the episode
Sami also discusses:
• Where the line falls between his role and that of the group CTO as network and IT converge;
• Why Vodacom is using small language models to help large models handle isiZulu, Swahili, Amharic and Egypt’s Arabic dialects;
• How a standard set of AI agents across the software development life cycle is lifting developer productivity, and why it hasn’t cost software engineers their jobs;
• How Vodacom is trying to stop AI token bills running away, including orchestrators that route work between expensive, cheap and self-hosted models;
• Why he told the board that cybersecurity is one of the company’s biggest risks, and the programme to rebuild core platforms designed before the generative AI era; and
• What it takes to be a modern CIO, and his advice for a graduate who wants his job in 20 years.
Don’t miss a great discussion on technology in telecoms. TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 05 Oct 2026 15:43:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | Vodacom’s Mohamed Sami on the agentic future 0 0 TechCentral full 44:44 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1724990 https://iono.fm/e/1724990 Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Sami said Vodacom’s chatbots and voice bots already handle a considerable share of customer calls, while AI tools help its human agents find information without jumping between systems.
“When I say it is the next big thing, it is not something that is happening in years. It’s something that is happening very soon,” he said. How autonomous those agents become, he added, depends on how much intelligence and orchestration sits behind them.
Watch the episode
Sami also discusses:
• Where the line falls between his role and that of the group CTO as network and IT converge;
• Why Vodacom is using small language models to help large models handle isiZulu, Swahili, Amharic and Egypt’s Arabic dialects;
• How a standard set of AI agents across the software development life cycle is lifting developer productivity, and why it hasn’t cost software engineers their jobs;
• How Vodacom is trying to stop AI token bills running away, including orchestrators that route work between expensive, cheap and self-hosted models;
• Why he told the board that cybersecurity is one of the company’s biggest risks, and the programme to rebuild core platforms designed before the generative AI era; and
• What it takes to be a modern CIO, and his advice for a graduate who wants his job in 20 years.
Don’t miss a great discussion on technology in telecoms. TechCentral]]> Management Mon, 05 Oct 2026 15:42:00 +0200 0 0 Vodacom Group’s Mohamed Sami on the agentic future 0 0 TechCentral full 44:44 Meet the CIO https://iono.fm/e/1723878 https://iono.fm/e/1723878 Novitske moved to Nigeria in 2012 and has invested from Lagos ever since. Norrsken22, a pan-African growth fund backed by Nordic tech founders including those behind Klarna, Skype and Minecraft, closed its debut fund at US$205-million in 2023. It is now about halfway through deploying that capital, with no exits yet.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, she expands on the argument TechCentral reported last week: that African start-ups are increasingly building on Chinese AI models such as Alibaba’s Qwen because they are cheaper and more available, and that the US risks losing both a young, digital-first market and access to its data.
In the interview, with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Novitske also discusses:
• How Nigeria’s start-up scene has changed since she began as an angel investor;
• Why unpredictable regulation and a shortage of top talent are bigger obstacles for Nigerian founders than power cuts;
• How Chinese-backed OPay and PalmPay won Nigerian fintech by absorbing years of losses, and why that now makes regulators uneasy;
• Why Silicon Valley’s AI boom has drawn venture capital away from Africa, and when she expects it to return;
• Why Egypt and South Africa offer the best opportunities right now, with Nigeria likely to follow; and
• What Optasia’s oversubscribed JSE listing means for Johannesburg, why the biggest African fintechs are looking to New York, London and Hong Kong instead, and why one or two winners can return an entire fund.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:26:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Norrsken22’s Lexi Novitske on how China is winning African tech 0 0 TechCentral full 28:30 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1723877 https://iono.fm/e/1723877 Novitske moved to Nigeria in 2012 and has invested from Lagos ever since. Norrsken22, a pan-African growth fund backed by Nordic tech founders including those behind Klarna, Skype and Minecraft, closed its debut fund at US$205-million in 2023. It is now about halfway through deploying that capital, with no exits yet.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, she expands on the argument TechCentral reported last week: that African start-ups are increasingly building on Chinese AI models such as Alibaba’s Qwen because they are cheaper and more available, and that the US risks losing both a young, digital-first market and access to its data.
In the interview, with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Novitske also discusses:
• How Nigeria’s start-up scene has changed since she began as an angel investor;
• Why unpredictable regulation and a shortage of top talent are bigger obstacles for Nigerian founders than power cuts;
• How Chinese-backed OPay and PalmPay won Nigerian fintech by absorbing years of losses, and why that now makes regulators uneasy;
• Why Silicon Valley’s AI boom has drawn venture capital away from Africa, and when she expects it to return;
• Why Egypt and South Africa offer the best opportunities right now, with Nigeria likely to follow; and
• What Optasia’s oversubscribed JSE listing means for Johannesburg, why the biggest African fintechs are looking to New York, London and Hong Kong instead, and why one or two winners can return an entire fund.
Don’t miss the discussion! ]]> Technology Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:25:00 +0200 0 0 Norrsken22’s Lexi Novitske on how China is winning African tech 0 0 TechCentral full 28:30 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1722771 https://iono.fm/e/1722771 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen talks to Dominic White, MD for South Africa at Orange Cyberdefense, and Adam Ely, GM of AI security at Check Point, about the escalating threat AI poses to cybersecurity.
They unpack the incident in which OpenAI’s own agents escaped a test environment and broke into Hugging Face’s systems. White argues the initial breach was far from sophisticated and questions whether OpenAI understands its duty of care. Ely explains why the incident shows that even highly skilled, well-resourced teams can’t rule out agents going rogue.
They also take on the widely reported story that three Hacktron researchers used Anthropic’s Claude to take over OpenAI employees’ accounts – a story White calls “deliberately misleading”.
Also discussed:
• A Check Point customer running 50 000 AI agents – and what happens when they drift
• Why sandboxing and human oversight are struggling to keep up
• Why even security professionals end up switching off their own agents’ safeguards
• The case for monitoring agents from the inside, in real time
• Whether AI development can – or should – slow down
• Who is accountable when an agent breaks the rules
• The Manhattan Project comparison both guests reach for
• What they expect to see in the next 12 months
Whether you run a security team, build with AI or simply want to understand where the technology is heading, this is a frank conversation with two practitioners who see the threat from all sides. TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 29 Sep 2026 13:38:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Dominic White and Adam Ely on AI agents going rogue 0 0 TechCentral full 1:26:28 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1722770 https://iono.fm/e/1722770 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen talks to Dominic White, MD for South Africa at Orange Cyberdefense, and Adam Ely, GM of AI security at Check Point, about the escalating threat AI poses to cybersecurity.
They unpack the incident in which OpenAI’s own agents escaped a test environment and broke into Hugging Face’s systems. White argues the initial breach was far from sophisticated and questions whether OpenAI understands its duty of care. Ely explains why the incident shows that even highly skilled, well-resourced teams can’t rule out agents going rogue.
They also take on the widely reported story that three Hacktron researchers used Anthropic’s Claude to take over OpenAI employees’ accounts – a story White calls “deliberately misleading”.
Also discussed:
• A Check Point customer running 50 000 AI agents – and what happens when they drift
• Why sandboxing and human oversight are struggling to keep up
• Why even security professionals end up switching off their own agents’ safeguards
• The case for monitoring agents from the inside, in real time
• Whether AI development can – or should – slow down
• Who is accountable when an agent breaks the rules
• The Manhattan Project comparison both guests reach for
• What they expect to see in the next 12 months
Whether you run a security team, build with AI or simply want to understand where the technology is heading, this is a frank conversation with two practitioners who see the threat from all sides. ]]> Technology Tue, 29 Sep 2026 13:37:00 +0200 0 0 Dominic White and Adam Ely on AI agents going rogue 0 0 TechCentral full 1:26:28 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1718430 https://iono.fm/e/1718430 In the interview, he sets out Octotel’s position: just under 400 000 homes passed across the Cape Town metropole, the West Coast and the Garden Route; a balance sheet he says lets the company deploy capital when and where it chooses; and a Western Cape footprint he argues overlaps very little with MetroFibre’s.
He discusses the next phase of roll-out, too. As networks push into lower-LSM areas, “the commercials and the economics start changing”, he says, and affordability now reaches well into the middle class.
He rejects the idea that fixed-wireless access can substitute for fibre in dense settlements – wireless has improved dramatically, he says, “but when you look at the actual demand case and what is required in those environments, it absolutely has to be fibre”. The more important question, in his view, is how to distribute it economically once you get there.
On Openserve’s move into the ISP business, Van Zyl is relaxed. He says he understands why Openserve did it, but that Octotel will not follow: “We certainly don’t want to become an ISP. We’re not good at being an ISP.”
He also expects consolidation among ISPs as networks saturate, sees low-Earth orbit satellite as complementary to fibre rather than a threat to it, and will not rule Octotel out of any future move by MTN on fibre network assets.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:02:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Octotel’s Trevor van Zyl on the fibre merger question 0 0 TechCentral full 25:17 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1718429 https://iono.fm/e/1718429 In the interview, he sets out Octotel’s position: just under 400 000 homes passed across the Cape Town metropole, the West Coast and the Garden Route; a balance sheet he says lets the company deploy capital when and where it chooses; and a Western Cape footprint he argues overlaps very little with MetroFibre’s.
He discusses the next phase of roll-out, too. As networks push into lower-LSM areas, “the commercials and the economics start changing”, he says, and affordability now reaches well into the middle class.
He rejects the idea that fixed-wireless access can substitute for fibre in dense settlements – wireless has improved dramatically, he says, “but when you look at the actual demand case and what is required in those environments, it absolutely has to be fibre”. The more important question, in his view, is how to distribute it economically once you get there.
On Openserve’s move into the ISP business, Van Zyl is relaxed. He says he understands why Openserve did it, but that Octotel will not follow: “We certainly don’t want to become an ISP. We’re not good at being an ISP.”
He also expects consolidation among ISPs as networks saturate, sees low-Earth orbit satellite as complementary to fibre rather than a threat to it, and will not rule Octotel out of any future move by MTN on fibre network assets.
Don’t miss the discussion. ]]> Technology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:47:00 +0200 0 0 Octotel’s Trevor van Zyl on the fibre merger question 0 0 TechCentral full 25:17 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1715962 https://iono.fm/e/1715962 Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Shortt said Africa’s largest retailer is building towards a unified experience regardless of how a customer reaches it: ordering by voice from a home assistant, or walking in to choose their own tomatoes and their own fillet.
“How do we blend that for you so that it’s actually how you want to do things, as opposed to how we might want you to do things,” he said. The group’s store footprint, he added, is as alive and active as it has always been, and its point of presence in communities still makes a difference to customers.
Delivering on that promise rests on a real-time inventory layer, which is why modernising Shoprite’s core SAP retail platform is the largest technology project the group has running.
Shortt also discusses:
• How the CIO/CTO’s job has changed, with the infrastructure now simply expected to work and the role shifting towards helping business counterparts understand the art of the possible;
• Why about 12 000 Shoprite employees are using generative AI, and how the gateway the group built picks the least expensive model that can handle a request;
• Why his product teams now pair one or two people with several agents, and what he put to the group’s chief people officer about recruits who arrive with agents of their own;
• Why he will not comment on other retailers’ ERP failures, and the “day in the life of” testing he relies on instead;
• What he tells the audit and risk committee when they ask what keeps him up at night; and
• The book that shaped his thinking, and the productivity habit he will not work without.
Don’t miss a great discussion on the future of retail. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:16:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | Chris Shortt on what a supermarket becomes 0 0 TechCentral full 43:30 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1715961 https://iono.fm/e/1715961 Chris Shortt, chief technology officer at Shoprite Group, says the work of the next five years is meeting the customer at their point of need, wherever that is – and that this does not mean the end of the store.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Shortt said Africa’s largest retailer is building towards a unified experience regardless of how a customer reaches it: ordering by voice from a home assistant, or walking in to choose their own tomatoes and their own fillet.
“How do we blend that for you so that it’s actually how you want to do things, as opposed to how we might want you to do things,” he said. The group’s store footprint, he added, is as alive and active as it has always been, and its point of presence in communities still makes a difference to customers.
Delivering on that promise rests on a real-time inventory layer, which is why modernising Shoprite’s core SAP retail platform is the largest technology project the group has running.
Shortt also discusses:
• How the CIO/CTO’s job has changed, with the infrastructure now simply expected to work and the role shifting towards helping business counterparts understand the art of the possible;
• Why about 12 000 Shoprite employees are using generative AI, and how the gateway the group built picks the least expensive model that can handle a request;
• Why his product teams now pair one or two people with several agents, and what he put to the group’s chief people officer about recruits who arrive with agents of their own;
• Why he will not comment on other retailers’ ERP failures, and the “day in the life of” testing he relies on instead;
• What he tells the audit and risk committee when they ask what keeps him up at night; and
• The book that shaped his thinking, and the productivity habit he will not work without.
Don’t miss a great discussion on the future of retail. TechCentral]]> Management Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:14:00 +0200 0 0 Shoprite Group's Chris Shortt on what a supermarket becomes 0 0 TechCentral full 43:30 Meet the CIO https://iono.fm/e/1715641 https://iono.fm/e/1715641 --
Rubicon’s public charging network is profitable and grew usage markedly in two months as fuel prices spiked, the company’s e-mobility head has told TechCentral’s Watts & Wheels.
Hilton Musk said usage climbed roughly 30% in a single month, then another 30% the month after. “We thought it was a fluke,” he said. “But it carried on.” Growth started levelling off in June, largely because importers have sold through their stock of affordable EVs.
Rubicon, founded in Port Elizabeth in 1985 as an electrical supplier to the likes of Volkswagen, now runs 125 chargers and wants a thousand within five years – about eight times its current footprint.
The network turned profitable roughly a year ago, which Musk put down to concentrating on dense urban markets: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Bloemfontein. Around 90% of driving happens inside those hubs, he said, with the other 10% between them.
The company has chargers on the N3 and N4 and opened the Durban-Cape Town route in 2024. The N1 remains GridCars territory.
Musk expects public charging to take a larger share in South Africa than the 80/20 home-to-public split seen in mature markets – closer to 70/30 – because many EV owners live in complexes and estates with no charging.
At R7/kWh, Rubicon’s DC charging works out to roughly R1/km, against about 50c/km on municipal power at home. Both undercut petrol comfortably.
He is sticking with 2028 as the year battery-electric vehicles reach 5% of new passenger sales. Count hybrids and plug-ins, he said, and the market is nearly there already.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:34:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels | Rubicon’s EV charging network is profitable – and growing fast 0 0 TechCentral full 24:30 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1715640 https://iono.fm/e/1715640 --
Rubicon’s public charging network is profitable and grew usage markedly in two months as fuel prices spiked, the company’s e-mobility head has told TechCentral’s Watts & Wheels.
Hilton Musk said usage climbed roughly 30% in a single month, then another 30% the month after. “We thought it was a fluke,” he said. “But it carried on.” Growth started levelling off in June, largely because importers have sold through their stock of affordable EVs.
Rubicon, founded in Port Elizabeth in the mid-1980s as an electrical supplier to the likes of Volkswagen, now runs 125 chargers and wants a thousand within five years – about eight times its current footprint.
The network turned profitable roughly a year ago, which Musk put down to concentrating on dense urban markets: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Bloemfontein. Around 90% of driving happens inside those hubs, he said, with the other 10% between them.
The company has chargers on the N3 and N4 and opened the Durban-Cape Town route in 2024. The N1 remains GridCars territory.
Musk expects public charging to take a larger share in South Africa than the 80/20 home-to-public split seen in mature markets – closer to 70/30 – because many EV owners live in complexes and estates with no charging.
At R7/kWh, Rubicon’s DC charging works out to roughly R1/km, against about 50c/km on municipal power at home. Both undercut petrol comfortably.
He is sticking with 2028 as the year battery-electric vehicles reach 5% of new passenger sales. Count hybrids and plug-ins, he said, and the market is nearly there already.
Don’t miss the discussion. ]]> Automotive Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:33:00 +0200 0 0 Rubicon’s EV charging network is profitable – and growing fast 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 24:30 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1714058 https://iono.fm/e/1714058 Parmar, who heads the non-profit advocacy body and co-founded the Southern African Electric Mobility Association, said the past three years have changed what is available locally. Battery-electric models are now selling below R400 000 and range has improved sharply. But 64% of cars sold in South Africa go for under R400 000, and import duties plus the ad valorem levy keep most electric models above that line.
The commercial side is moving faster. Light-, medium-, heavy- and ultra-heavy-duty electric trucks are now available in South Africa rather than being promised in presentations, Parmar said, with fleets reporting total cost of ownership savings of up to 25%. The economics improve the further a vehicle travels, which makes high-mileage fleets the first adopters rather than the last.
He pointed to the 12.5GW of private solar installed in South Africa by the end of 2025, on figures from the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association, as an underused base for charging. Fleets can charge from their own generation during the day and fall back to the grid overnight.
On manufacturing, Parmar said six of the seven passenger and light commercial vehicle manufacturers in South Africa now have batteries entering local production, and four have secured hybrid investments. What is missing is a tier-one battery cell supplier and an incentive framework for zero-emission vehicles to sit alongside the one government has run for local vehicle assembly since 1995.
With European export markets tightening towards 2035, he said, the window for that decision is closing.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:53:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels | Why electric trucks are beating electric cars to South Africa 0 0 TechCentral full 31:27 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1714056 https://iono.fm/e/1714056 Parmar, who heads the non-profit advocacy body and co-founded the Southern African Electric Mobility Association, said the past three years have changed what is available locally. Battery-electric models are now selling below R400 000 and range has improved sharply. But 64% of cars sold in South Africa go for under R400 000, and import duties plus the ad valorem levy keep most electric models above that line.
The commercial side is moving faster. Light-, medium-, heavy- and ultra-heavy-duty electric trucks are now available in South Africa rather than being promised in presentations, Parmar said, with fleets reporting total cost of ownership savings of up to 25%. The economics improve the further a vehicle travels, which makes high-mileage fleets the first adopters rather than the last.
He pointed to the 12.5GW of private solar installed in South Africa by the end of 2025, on figures from the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association, as an underused base for charging. Fleets can charge from their own generation during the day and fall back to the grid overnight.
On manufacturing, Parmar said six of the seven passenger and light commercial vehicle manufacturers in South Africa now have batteries entering local production, and four have secured hybrid investments. What is missing is a tier-one battery cell supplier and an incentive framework for zero-emission vehicles to sit alongside the one government has run for local vehicle assembly since 1995.
With European export markets tightening towards 2035, he said, the window for that decision is closing.
Don’t miss the discussion! ]]> Automotive Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:51:00 +0200 0 0 Why electric trucks are beating electric cars to South Africa 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 31:27 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1713621 https://iono.fm/e/1713621 In this episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, the GridCars founder tells William Kelly why the hardware was never the hard part. Working out where to put a charger and how much power to feed it is straightforward. Building the billing and roaming systems behind it is not.
That is also the answer to a question drivers keep asking: why can’t you just tap a card? Because the network needs to know who you are. If a charger is faulty, or the power is about to go off, Jordaan wants to be able to call you.
He is candid in the interview about the economics of building a national EV charging network. A charge point operator needs around a thousand chargers to be profitable, by calculation. South Africa has roughly 650 in total. A 24-hour call centre alone takes seven people. Long term, he expects 500 000 chargers for a car parc of 11 million vehicles.
Jordaan also thinks adoption is about to accelerate sharply, and that the disruption will reach well beyond motoring. He recently told one industry gathering that a third of the room would be out of business within five years.
On charging infrastructure as a reason not to buy an EV, he is clear about one thing: there are enough chargers. Thinking otherwise, he says, is just being poorly informed.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:15:00 +0200 0 0 Winstone Jordaan on building a national EV charging network 0 0 TechCentral full 22:56 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1713620 https://iono.fm/e/1713620 In this episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, the GridCars founder tells William Kelly why the hardware was never the hard part. Working out where to put a charger and how much power to feed it is straightforward. Building the billing and roaming systems behind it is not.
That is also the answer to a question drivers keep asking: why can’t you just tap a card? Because the network needs to know who you are. If a charger is faulty, or the power is about to go off, Jordaan wants to be able to call you.
He is candid in the interview about the economics of building a national EV charging network. A charge point operator needs around a thousand chargers to be profitable, by calculation. South Africa has roughly 650 in total. A 24-hour call centre alone takes seven people. Long term, he expects 500 000 chargers for a car parc of 11 million vehicles.
Jordaan also thinks adoption is about to accelerate sharply, and that the disruption will reach well beyond motoring. He recently told one industry gathering that a third of the room would be out of business within five years.
On charging infrastructure as a reason not to buy an EV, he is clear about one thing: there are enough chargers. Thinking otherwise, he says, is just being poorly informed.
Don’t miss the discussion. ]]> Automotive Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:13:00 +0200 0 0 Winstone Jordaan on building a national EV charging network 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 22:56 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1710342 https://iono.fm/e/1710342 Too many South African drivers, he argues, treat the left indicator as an invitation to be overtaken rather than a signal of intent, and lane discipline would save the country time, fuel and a great deal of frustration, he opines.
Duncan McLeod wonders where enforcement of that sort ends – cameras and artificial intelligence deciding when you should pull over? – which leads neatly into the episode’s main interview.
In episode 8, William and Duncan get stuck into:
• An interview with Dillan Fernando, CEO of Tracker, on what a vehicle-tracking business becomes when cars generate far more data than a stolen-vehicle recovery unit ever needed – and what happens once AI is pointed at it.
• The grid maths – William sets a total Eskom grid figure of roughly 47GW against a national fleet of about 13 million vehicles, of which only some 10 000 can be plugged in at all. His conclusion: EV charging is nowhere near being an Eskom problem, and on current trajectories most of us will not live to see the day it is.
• EV education in South Africa – how much do buyers actually understand about what they are being sold, and whose job is it to tell them?
• Volvo gets Gemini – Google’s assistant has begun rolling out to Volvo cars, starting in the US and reaching models going back to 2020. Fixed voice commands give way to something closer to conversation: brainstorming a holiday, finding a decent coffee stop on the route, summarising an incoming text and dictating a reply in another language, or simply asking for something calming on the stereo.
• Tesla lands in Africa – in Casablanca – Morocco, not South Africa, is where Tesla has put its African base, with a corporate presence in Casablanca and a Supercharger network built out since 2021 across Casablanca, Tangier, Rabat, Fez, Marrakesh and Agadir. Its cars still cannot be bought through official channels here. Is Africa a sleeping EV giant? The hosts are unconvinced.
• Trade deals and battery minerals – India signs a motor industry trade deal with the EU while, at home, Itac proposes bringing EV battery minerals into the list of qualifying standard materials under APDP2, at a standard value added rate of 50% against the usual 25%, provided they originate in Sacu or the SADC region. William’s question: is anyone actually going to build the batteries?
• Mad Chinese cars – BYD’s Tang and the Denza B8, plus XPeng’s GX, the brand’s first three-row luxury SUV.
• A moment of silence – too soon, Honda? The hosts mark the company’s retreat from its electric vehicle strategy.
Also in the mix is the new metal heading for South African showrooms. The Jaecoo J5 and the iCaur are on the way, along with the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, a plug-in hybrid whose entry-level version carries a 7.8kWh Blade battery – a remarkably small pack for a car you are expected to plug in. It arrives loaded with equipment, which prompts a broader observation: Chinese brands have spoiled South African buyers so quickly that the goalposts have already moved.
To contrast all that smoothness with something built for a purpose, there is the new Thula – the locally engineered electric game viewer that featured in episode 5 – back for another look.
The episode closes with Hot or Not, where the Toyota FJ, the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, the iCaur and the Thula game viewer all go under the hammer.
Watch S1E8 of Watts & Wheels now. Don’t forget to subscribe, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues. TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 24 Aug 2026 14:42:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E8: ‘Tesla lands in Africa, just not here’ 0 0 TechCentral full 1:11:26 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1710340 https://iono.fm/e/1710340 Too many South African drivers, he argues, treat the left indicator as an invitation to be overtaken rather than a signal of intent, and lane discipline would save the country time, fuel and a great deal of frustration, he opines.
Duncan McLeod wonders where enforcement of that sort ends – cameras and artificial intelligence deciding when you should pull over? – which leads neatly into the episode’s main interview.
In episode 8, William and Duncan get stuck into:
• An interview with Dillan Fernando, CEO of Tracker, on what a vehicle-tracking business becomes when cars generate far more data than a stolen-vehicle recovery unit ever needed – and what happens once AI is pointed at it.
• The grid maths – William sets a total Eskom grid figure of roughly 47GW against a national fleet of about 13 million vehicles, of which only some 10 000 can be plugged in at all. His conclusion: EV charging is nowhere near being an Eskom problem, and on current trajectories most of us will not live to see the day it is.
• EV education in South Africa – how much do buyers actually understand about what they are being sold, and whose job is it to tell them?
• Volvo gets Gemini – Google’s assistant has begun rolling out to Volvo cars, starting in the US and reaching models going back to 2020. Fixed voice commands give way to something closer to conversation: brainstorming a holiday, finding a decent coffee stop on the route, summarising an incoming text and dictating a reply in another language, or simply asking for something calming on the stereo.
• Tesla lands in Africa – in Casablanca – Morocco, not South Africa, is where Tesla has put its African base, with a corporate presence in Casablanca and a Supercharger network built out since 2021 across Casablanca, Tangier, Rabat, Fez, Marrakesh and Agadir. Its cars still cannot be bought through official channels here. Is Africa a sleeping EV giant? The hosts are unconvinced.
• Trade deals and battery minerals – India signs a motor industry trade deal with the EU while, at home, Itac proposes bringing EV battery minerals into the list of qualifying standard materials under APDP2, at a standard value added rate of 50% against the usual 25%, provided they originate in Sacu or the SADC region. William’s question: is anyone actually going to build the batteries?
• Mad Chinese cars – BYD’s Tang and the Denza B8, plus XPeng’s GX, the brand’s first three-row luxury SUV.
• A moment of silence – too soon, Honda? The hosts mark the company’s retreat from its electric vehicle strategy.
Also in the mix is the new metal heading for South African showrooms. The Jaecoo J5 and the iCaur are on the way, along with the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, a plug-in hybrid whose entry-level version carries a 7.8kWh Blade battery – a remarkably small pack for a car you are expected to plug in. It arrives loaded with equipment, which prompts a broader observation: Chinese brands have spoiled South African buyers so quickly that the goalposts have already moved.
To contrast all that smoothness with something built for a purpose, there is the new Thula – the locally engineered electric game viewer that featured in episode 5 – back for another look.
The episode closes with Hot or Not, where the Toyota FJ, the BYD Atto 2 DM-i, the iCaur and the Thula game viewer all go under the hammer.
Watch S1E8 of Watts & Wheels now. Don’t forget to subscribe, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues. ]]> Automotive Mon, 24 Aug 2026 14:41:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E8: ‘Tesla lands in Africa, just not here’ 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 1:11:26 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1707141 https://iono.fm/e/1707141 Botha explains why low-Earth orbit satellite technology changes the equation for anyone living beyond the reach of fibre and fixed-wireless services.
He addresses the awkward questions directly:
• How does Amazon get in without giving up 30%?
• Does a wholesale-retail split leave anything behind in the country?
• Would he sign the same deal with Starlink tomorrow?
• What about the regulatory asymmetry?
Also covered: what Evry is likely to cost; why studies on the market’s size range from 480 000 to 2.4 million potential customers; why Herotel is taking registrations for a service that has not launched commercially anywhere; whether Evry will cannibalise Herotel’s own fibre and wireless base; what Vodacom’s stake in Maziv means for Herotel’s independence; and why LEO satellites are viable now when the idea is 40 years old.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 14 Aug 2026 12:04:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha on beating Starlink to South Africa 0 0 TechCentral full 22:01 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1707140 https://iono.fm/e/1707140 Botha explains why low-Earth orbit satellite technology changes the equation for anyone living beyond the reach of fibre and fixed-wireless services.
He addresses the awkward questions directly:
• How does Amazon get in without giving up 30%?
• Does a wholesale-retail split leave anything behind in the country?
• Would he sign the same deal with Starlink tomorrow?
• What about the regulatory asymmetry?
Also covered: what Evry is likely to cost; why studies on the market’s size range from 480 000 to 2.4 million potential customers; why Herotel is taking registrations for a service that has not launched commercially anywhere; whether Evry will cannibalise Herotel’s own fibre and wireless base; what Vodacom’s stake in Maziv means for Herotel’s independence; and why LEO satellites are viable now when the idea is 40 years old.
Don’t miss the discussion! ]]> Technology Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:55:00 +0200 0 0 Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha on beating Starlink to South Africa 0 0 TechCentral full 22:01 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1706623 https://iono.fm/e/1706623 Derek Wilcocks, group CIO at Discovery, says AI has finally given the group the ability to do something it has wanted to do since Vitality launched more than 25 years ago: personalise it.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Wilcocks said Personal Health Pathways is built on AI models trained on member data collected since 2000, and used only with a member’s consent. For most of Vitality’s history, the targets were identical for everyone. The programme can now suggest a walk, a glucose test or a cancer screening rather than a run.
Wilcocks spent 23 years at Dimension Data, now NTT Data, where he ran Internet Solutions, served as group CIO and led the Middle East and Africa business as CEO. He was the 12th person to join Internet Solutions and founded a subsidiary that sold the first firewalls into South Africa’s banks. He joined Discovery in 2018.
In the discussion, he is candid about the limits of AI in software development. Discovery is measuring efficiency gains of roughly 20-25% in some areas from AI coding tools, but developers in large corporates were spending only a quarter to a third of their time writing code to begin with. Senior developers use all the major agentic coding frameworks, though the group has spent heavily on guardrails constraining what those tools are allowed to do.
Wilcocks also discusses:
• Why Discovery’s health and life businesses buy no traditional enterprise software, developing everything from scratch;
• Why he thinks Elon Musk is right about the direction but wrong about the timing on the end of source code, and the three problems standing in the way – explainability, efficiency and maintainability;
• Why the decade in which knowing how to code was enough to walk into a job has come to an end;
• How a federated model with around 14 CIOs across the group is held together by mandatory central security, privacy and ethics functions – and what happened when Discovery’s data scientists were asked to simplify the AI rules written for them;
• Why he sees AI at Discovery as primarily a growth story rather than a cost-cutting one, with staff retrained and redeployed rather than cut; and
• His route into computers, from a Commodore Vic-20 with 4KB of memory to the father who cured him of wanting to be an electrical engineer.
Don’t miss any of the other great interviews on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:43:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | Derek Wilcocks on how AI personalised Vitality 0 0 TechCentral full 50:55 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1706622 https://iono.fm/e/1706622 Derek Wilcocks, group CIO at Discovery, says AI has finally given the group the ability to do something it has wanted to do since Vitality launched more than 25 years ago: personalise it.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Wilcocks said Personal Health Pathways is built on AI models trained on member data collected since 2000, and used only with a member’s consent. For most of Vitality’s history, the targets were identical for everyone. The programme can now suggest a walk, a glucose test or a cancer screening rather than a run.
Wilcocks spent 23 years at Dimension Data, now NTT Data, where he ran Internet Solutions, served as group CIO and led the Middle East and Africa business as CEO. He was the 12th person to join Internet Solutions and founded a subsidiary that sold the first firewalls into South Africa’s banks. He joined Discovery in 2018.
In the discussion, he is candid about the limits of AI in software development. Discovery is measuring efficiency gains of roughly 20-25% in some areas from AI coding tools, but developers in large corporates were spending only a quarter to a third of their time writing code to begin with. Senior developers use all the major agentic coding frameworks, though the group has spent heavily on guardrails constraining what those tools are allowed to do.
Wilcocks also discusses:
• Why Discovery’s health and life businesses buy no traditional enterprise software, developing everything from scratch;
• Why he thinks Elon Musk is right about the direction but wrong about the timing on the end of source code, and the three problems standing in the way – explainability, efficiency and maintainability;
• Why the decade in which knowing how to code was enough to walk into a job has come to an end;
• How a federated model with around 14 CIOs across the group is held together by mandatory central security, privacy and ethics functions – and what happened when Discovery’s data scientists were asked to simplify the AI rules written for them;
• Why he sees AI at Discovery as primarily a growth story rather than a cost-cutting one, with staff retrained and redeployed rather than cut; and
• His route into computers, from a Commodore Vic-20 with 4KB of memory to the father who cured him of wanting to be an electrical engineer.
Don’t miss any of the other great interviews on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO. TechCentral]]> Management Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:42:00 +0200 0 0 Derek Wilcocks on how AI finally Vitality 0 0 TechCentral full 50:55 Meet the CIO https://iono.fm/e/1706310 https://iono.fm/e/1706310 TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen spoke to him about the moment money finally became native to the internet, why the South African Reserve Bank appears to be walking in the opposite direction, and what AI is quietly doing to science and schooling while everyone argues about chatbots. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:35:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Money just became native to the internet - Steven Boykey Sidley 0 0 TechCentral full 45:43 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1706309 https://iono.fm/e/1706309 TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen spoke to him about the moment money finally became native to the internet, why the South African Reserve Bank appears to be walking in the opposite direction, and what AI is quietly doing to science and schooling while everyone argues about chatbots. ]]> Technology Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:34:00 +0200 0 0 Money just became native to the internet - Steven Boykey Sidley 0 0 TechCentral full 45:43 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1705035 https://iono.fm/e/1705035
Traditional approaches to access security no longer hold up in hybrid, cloud-first environments – and AI is widening the gap.
In this episode, host Kevin Smith speaks to Darren James, senior product manager at Specops Software, about the distance between how organisations secure access and how people actually work.
Businesses have poured money into identity-based controls – passwords, multi-factor authentication, zero-trust initiatives – yet breaches keep rising, because attackers increasingly exploit trusted identities rather than technical vulnerabilities. An intruder holding legitimate credentials looks like an authorised user and can operate undetected.
That points to a shift in security thinking: verifying the user’s identity is no longer enough. Access decisions must also account for the device being used, its security posture and whether trust should hold for the length of a session.
Working through a real-world breach, James shows how a single compromised account escalates into a serious incident, and where a more contextual approach to access control could break the attack chain before damage is done. The discussion reframes zero trust as an ongoing process rather than a one-time authentication event, and makes the case for layered verification.
He also looks ahead to automated attacks and the rise of non-human identities – service accounts and AI agents among them. As organisations lean harder on autonomous systems, identity-centric models will face pressures they were never designed for.
The executive takeaway is this: the cybersecurity battleground is shifting from identity verification to continuous trust. In an era of AI-driven threats and hybrid work, organisations need to stop asking “who is accessing the system?” and start asking, continuously, “should this access still be trusted?”
Don’t miss the discussion. ]]> Technology Fri, 07 Aug 2026 10:44:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Specops' Darren James on continuous trust in an AI world 0 0 TechCentral full 45:45 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1705034 https://iono.fm/e/1705034
Traditional approaches to access security no longer hold up in hybrid, cloud-first environments – and AI is widening the gap.
In this episode, host Kevin Smith speaks to Darren James, senior product manager at Specops Software, about the distance between how organisations secure access and how people actually work.
Businesses have poured money into identity-based controls – passwords, multi-factor authentication, zero-trust initiatives – yet breaches keep rising, because attackers increasingly exploit trusted identities rather than technical vulnerabilities. An intruder holding legitimate credentials looks like an authorised user and can operate undetected.
That points to a shift in security thinking: verifying the user’s identity is no longer enough. Access decisions must also account for the device being used, its security posture and whether trust should hold for the length of a session.
Working through a real-world breach, James shows how a single compromised account escalates into a serious incident, and where a more contextual approach to access control could break the attack chain before damage is done. The discussion reframes zero trust as an ongoing process rather than a one-time authentication event, and makes the case for layered verification.
He also looks ahead to automated attacks and the rise of non-human identities – service accounts and AI agents among them. As organisations lean harder on autonomous systems, identity-centric models will face pressures they were never designed for.
The executive takeaway is this: the cybersecurity battleground is shifting from identity verification to continuous trust. In an era of AI-driven threats and hybrid work, organisations need to stop asking “who is accessing the system?” and start asking, continuously, “should this access still be trusted?”
Don’t miss the discussion. ]]> Technology Fri, 07 Aug 2026 10:37:00 +0200 0 0 Specops' Darren James on continuous trust in an AI world 0 0 TechCentral full 45:45 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1704663 https://iono.fm/e/1704663 In the age of AI, that logic is starting to break. Kit bought today can be obsolete in two or three years, chips are in short supply and the companies pulling ahead are no longer those that own the most but those that can adapt the fastest.
In this episode of TCS+, Shane van der Merwe, head of technology finance at Merchant West, explains why the shift from owning technology to simply accessing it is gathering pace.
Van der Merwe unpacks:
• What is driving businesses to let go of owning their technology stack;
• Why hardware — the physical "tin" — has been the last thing to move to a subscription model, long after software did;
• Whether this is a corporate trend only, or whether cash-conscious SMEs are moving too;
• How the rise of AI is accelerating the move away from owned kit;
• The global chip-supply squeeze, and the tiering that can leave South Africa further back in the queue;
• Whether being in the cloud is a competitive advantage in itself;
• What obsolescence really costs a business, even on equipment that is already "paid off";
• How the shift from capex to opex changes the balance sheet — and what happens to the IT team;
• What a Merchant West solution looks like end to end, including how Popia-compliant data destruction is handled when old kit is returned;
• The circular-economy angle, in which returned devices are given a second life rather than being scrapped; and
• How getting this right frees up cash and keeps a business competitive in its core operations, not just its IT.
Don't miss the discussion.
This promoted content was paid for by the party concerned. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 06 Aug 2026 12:34:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | How AI is turning hardware into a subscription service 0 0 TechCentral full 19:58 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1704662 https://iono.fm/e/1704662 In the age of AI, that logic is starting to break. Kit bought today can be obsolete in two or three years, chips are in short supply and the companies pulling ahead are no longer those that own the most but those that can adapt the fastest.
In this episode of TCS+, Shane van der Merwe, head of technology finance at Merchant West, explains why the shift from owning technology to simply accessing it is gathering pace.
Van der Merwe unpacks:
• What is driving businesses to let go of owning their technology stack;
• Why hardware — the physical "tin" — has been the last thing to move to a subscription model, long after software did;
• Whether this is a corporate trend only, or whether cash-conscious SMEs are moving too;
• How the rise of AI is accelerating the move away from owned kit;
• The global chip-supply squeeze, and the tiering that can leave South Africa further back in the queue;
• Whether being in the cloud is a competitive advantage in itself;
• What obsolescence really costs a business, even on equipment that is already "paid off";
• How the shift from capex to opex changes the balance sheet — and what happens to the IT team;
• What a Merchant West solution looks like end to end, including how Popia-compliant data destruction is handled when old kit is returned;
• The circular-economy angle, in which returned devices are given a second life rather than being scrapped; and
• How getting this right frees up cash and keeps a business competitive in its core operations, not just its IT.
Don't miss the discussion.
This promoted content was paid for by the party concerned. ]]> Technology Thu, 06 Aug 2026 12:31:00 +0200 0 0 How AI is turning hardware into a subscription service 0 0 TechCentral full 19:58 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1702649 https://iono.fm/e/1702649
Not long ago, organisations were experimenting with generative AI to draft e-mails, summarise documents and answer questions. Today agentic AI is changing what the technology is for.
In a conversation on TechCentral’s TCS+ podcast, Cliff de Wit, MD for South Africa and group chief innovation officer at Accelera Digital Group (ADG), argued that the real story is not machines replacing people but a fundamental shift in how work gets done — and where humans create value.
Rather than completing individual tasks on command, AI agents can be given an objective and left to determine how best to achieve it. De Wit illustrated this with a know-your-customer (KYC) use case in which agentic AI is already automating complex workflows and accelerating business outcomes.
AI is no longer simply a tool that assists workers. Increasingly, it is a digital workforce in its own right.
In a country with one of the world's highest youth unemployment rates, concerns about automation are understandable. But De Wit challenges the idea that AI should be viewed purely as a job-replacement technology.
"The human skills involved in business are fundamentally changing, but the basics of business still remain," he said.
Businesses will still need people to solve problems, exercise judgment, build relationships and drive innovation. What changes is how those outcomes are achieved: as routine and administrative work is automated, workers move up to activities where uniquely human skills matter most.
The sharper risk is distributional. Without investment in education, training and digital skills, AI's productivity gains could widen existing inequalities — not because jobs disappear, but because opportunity concentrates among those who know how to work with the technology. AI literacy may soon matter to employability as much as computer literacy did during the digital revolution.
Organisations are already deploying agents into operational environments, in some cases slotting them into workforce structures alongside human employees. Leaders are no longer managing only people; they are managing mixed teams.
De Wit believes businesses are better prepared for this than they think. Companies have long used governance frameworks and risk controls to oversee human decision-making, and many of the same principles adapt to digital workers. Whether a decision is executed by a person or a system, accountability, escalation and oversight remain essential.
Which decisions should be delegated, then, and which should stay under human control? De Wit's answer comes down to risk, and he sets out a framework for categorising it. The future, on his reading, is unlikely to be fully autonomous. Successful organisations will run human-in-the-loop models in which AI handles execution while people supply direction, judgment and accountability.
De Wit is optimistic. Many local organisations are still experimenting, but a growing number are moving past pilots to solve real problems and generate measurable value.
For leaders, the question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to do so responsibly, effectively and inclusively. The future workforce will consist neither solely of humans nor solely of machines — it will consist of humans who know how to lead, govern and orchestrate digital labour.
And that future is arriving faster than many realise. Don’t miss a great discussion! ]]> Technology Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:48:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Why South African workers must become supervisors of digital labour 0 0 TechCentral full 43:03 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1702648 https://iono.fm/e/1702648
Not long ago, organisations were experimenting with generative AI to draft e-mails, summarise documents and answer questions. Today agentic AI is changing what the technology is for.
In a conversation on TechCentral’s TCS+ podcast, Cliff de Wit, MD for South Africa and group chief innovation officer at Accelera Digital Group (ADG), argued that the real story is not machines replacing people but a fundamental shift in how work gets done — and where humans create value.
Rather than completing individual tasks on command, AI agents can be given an objective and left to determine how best to achieve it. De Wit illustrated this with a know-your-customer (KYC) use case in which agentic AI is already automating complex workflows and accelerating business outcomes.
AI is no longer simply a tool that assists workers. Increasingly, it is a digital workforce in its own right.
In a country with one of the world's highest youth unemployment rates, concerns about automation are understandable. But De Wit challenges the idea that AI should be viewed purely as a job-replacement technology.
"The human skills involved in business are fundamentally changing, but the basics of business still remain," he said.
Businesses will still need people to solve problems, exercise judgment, build relationships and drive innovation. What changes is how those outcomes are achieved: as routine and administrative work is automated, workers move up to activities where uniquely human skills matter most.
The sharper risk is distributional. Without investment in education, training and digital skills, AI's productivity gains could widen existing inequalities — not because jobs disappear, but because opportunity concentrates among those who know how to work with the technology. AI literacy may soon matter to employability as much as computer literacy did during the digital revolution.
Organisations are already deploying agents into operational environments, in some cases slotting them into workforce structures alongside human employees. Leaders are no longer managing only people; they are managing mixed teams.
De Wit believes businesses are better prepared for this than they think. Companies have long used governance frameworks and risk controls to oversee human decision-making, and many of the same principles adapt to digital workers. Whether a decision is executed by a person or a system, accountability, escalation and oversight remain essential.
Which decisions should be delegated, then, and which should stay under human control? De Wit's answer comes down to risk, and he sets out a framework for categorising it. The future, on his reading, is unlikely to be fully autonomous. Successful organisations will run human-in-the-loop models in which AI handles execution while people supply direction, judgment and accountability.
De Wit is optimistic. Many local organisations are still experimenting, but a growing number are moving past pilots to solve real problems and generate measurable value.
For leaders, the question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to do so responsibly, effectively and inclusively. The future workforce will consist neither solely of humans nor solely of machines — it will consist of humans who know how to lead, govern and orchestrate digital labour.
And that future is arriving faster than many realise. Don’t miss a great discussion! ]]> Technology Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:44:00 +0200 0 0 Why South African workers must become supervisors of digital labour 0 0 TechCentral full 43:03 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1702222 https://iono.fm/e/1702222 In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, brought to you by iStore Business, Sudesh Pillay, executive head of iStore Business South Africa, and Tamia Nontsikelelo, founder and CEO of womenswear label Tol’Thema, explore how SMEs can make smarter technology decisions and why the Apple ecosystem is increasingly the answer.
They discuss:
The pressures SMEs face and why low-maintenance, cost-effective technology is critical to their survival and growth;
How Tol’Thema uses iPhone and Mac in the day-to-day running of the business, and the practical value they deliver to customers;
Why historically fragmented SME IT is giving way to integrated ecosystems, and what is driving the shift;
The total cost of ownership case for Apple hardware, and why the premium price tag isn’t the whole story for budget-conscious businesses;
How Apple’s on-device AI, built into its silicon, helps SMEs future-proof their hardware investment;
The support iStore Business provides to ease hardware transitions and reduce the disruption of moving staff onto a new operating system;
Why native security and data protection features matter enormously to small businesses with no dedicated IT or compliance function; and
Which software and AI subscription costs SMEs can avoid by making better use of tools built into the Apple ecosystem.
Pillay also explains what happens when an SME’s needs outgrow out-of-the-box solutions, and how iStore Business provides the specialist support to scale with them.
Don’t miss this practical conversation about technology that works for South Africa’s small businesses. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:37:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | iStore Business on why Apple makes sense for SMEs 0 0 TechCentral full 37:49 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1702219 https://iono.fm/e/1702219
In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, brought to you by iStore Business, Sudesh Pillay, executive head of iStore Business South Africa, and Tamia Nontsikelelo, founder and CEO of womenswear label Tol’Thema, explore how SMEs can make smarter technology decisions and why the Apple ecosystem is increasingly the answer.
They discuss:
The pressures SMEs face and why low-maintenance, cost-effective technology is critical to their survival and growth;
How Tol’Thema uses iPhone and Mac in the day-to-day running of the business, and the practical value they deliver to customers;
Why historically fragmented SME IT is giving way to integrated ecosystems, and what is driving the shift;
The total cost of ownership case for Apple hardware, and why the premium price tag isn’t the whole story for budget-conscious businesses;
How Apple’s on-device AI, built into its silicon, helps SMEs future-proof their hardware investment;
The support iStore Business provides to ease hardware transitions and reduce the disruption of moving staff onto a new operating system;
Why native security and data protection features matter enormously to small businesses with no dedicated IT or compliance function; and
Which software and AI subscription costs SMEs can avoid by making better use of tools built into the Apple ecosystem.
Pillay also explains what happens when an SME’s needs outgrow out-of-the-box solutions, and how iStore Business provides the specialist support to scale with them.
Don’t miss this practical conversation about technology that works for South Africa’s small businesses. ]]> Technology Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:36:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | iStore Business on why Apple makes sense for SMEs 0 0 TechCentral full 37:49 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1702069 https://iono.fm/e/1702069 Speaking on the TechCentral Show with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Batyi said Icasa had consulted network operators and fibre companies but not the South African Local Government Association, which represents the municipalities that will have to apply the rules.
“You cannot just develop regulations without talking to all the parties,” she warned, arguing that Icasa should follow energy regulator Nersa’s approach to municipal engagement.
Asked when final rules might realistically be in place, she said 24 months – provided Icasa works through local government first.
On enforcement she was more optimistic. Section 21 of the Electronic Communications Act, amended in 2014, already empowers Icasa to set uniform procedures for permits and approvals at a reasonable fee, she said. “A lot of people may have missed the amendment.”
The gap is dispute resolution: the draft assumes disputes between licensees, leaving operators without recourse when a municipality refuses a way leave. At Icasa’s public hearings this month, ACT proposed binding municipal deadlines, deemed approval and damages claims for failing to respond to requests in time from telecoms providers.
ACT also objects to the detail in Icasa’s proposed national infrastructure database. Batyi supports mapping in principle but said the granularity sought would expose competitively sensitive information and create construction mafia and cybersecurity risks.
Beyond rapid deployment, Batyi listed four priorities on her plate: the newly finalised Rica framework agreement on Sim card verification, licence renewals by 2028, Icasa’s end-user and subscriber charter regulations and the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill – which she described as “embarrassing” in its current form.
ACT represents Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, Rain and Liquid Intelligent Technologies. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:17:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Icasa's rules skip the real bottleneck: ACT 0 0 TechCentral full 29:21 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1702067 https://iono.fm/e/1702067 Speaking on the TechCentral Show with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Batyi said Icasa had consulted network operators and fibre companies but not the South African Local Government Association, which represents the municipalities that will have to apply the rules.
“You cannot just develop regulations without talking to all the parties,” she warned, arguing that Icasa should follow energy regulator Nersa’s approach to municipal engagement.
Asked when final rules might realistically be in place, she said 24 months – provided Icasa works through local government first.
On enforcement she was more optimistic. Section 21 of the Electronic Communications Act, amended in 2014, already empowers Icasa to set uniform procedures for permits and approvals at a reasonable fee, she said. “A lot of people may have missed the amendment.”
The gap is dispute resolution: the draft assumes disputes between licensees, leaving operators without recourse when a municipality refuses a way leave. At Icasa’s public hearings this month, ACT proposed binding municipal deadlines, deemed approval and damages claims for failing to respond to requests in time from telecoms providers.
ACT also objects to the detail in Icasa’s proposed national infrastructure database. Batyi supports mapping in principle but said the granularity sought would expose competitively sensitive information and create construction mafia and cybersecurity risks.
Beyond rapid deployment, Batyi listed four priorities on her plate: the newly finalised Rica framework agreement on Sim card verification, licence renewals by 2028, Icasa’s end-user and subscriber charter regulations and the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill – which she described as “embarrassing” in its current form.
ACT represents Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, Rain and Liquid Intelligent Technologies. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media ]]> Technology Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:11:00 +0200 0 0 Icasa's rules skip the real bottleneck: ACT 0 0 TechCentral full 29:21 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1701267 https://iono.fm/e/1701267 That is the uncomfortable starting point for this episode of TCS+, in which Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to Joel Chacko, executive head of department for cloud services at Vodacom Business, and Jonathan Oaker, founder and CEO of CloudZA, about why the promise of cloud still isn’t matching the reality for so many organisations – and what it takes to close the gap.
Chacko and Oaker discuss why cloud has moved from the server room to the boardroom, with business resilience, agility and AI readiness emerging as the new drivers. They also examine why pressure to “move to cloud” can run ahead of strategy, leaving costs to climb faster than returns.
The pair also cover:
• Common pitfalls behind cost overruns, including poor governance, skills gaps and the slow adoption of cloud-native thinking;
• Why hybrid and multi-cloud architectures have become the baseline, and the strategic drivers behind that shift;
• The mindset organisations need to thrive in the cloud;
• What to look for when choosing a cloud partner; and
• What businesses should stop doing immediately, and where to redirect that energy instead.
Don't miss the discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:26:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | A smarter approach to cloud for South African businesses 0 0 TechCentral full 21:08 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1701266 https://iono.fm/e/1701266 That is the uncomfortable starting point for this episode of TCS+, in which Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to Joel Chacko, executive head of department for cloud services at Vodacom Business, and Jonathan Oaker, founder and CEO of CloudZA, about why the promise of cloud still isn’t matching the reality for so many organisations – and what it takes to close the gap.
Chacko and Oaker discuss why cloud has moved from the server room to the boardroom, with business resilience, agility and AI readiness emerging as the new drivers. They also examine why pressure to “move to cloud” can run ahead of strategy, leaving costs to climb faster than returns.
The pair also cover:
• Common pitfalls behind cost overruns, including poor governance, skills gaps and the slow adoption of cloud-native thinking;
• Why hybrid and multi-cloud architectures have become the baseline, and the strategic drivers behind that shift;
• The mindset organisations need to thrive in the cloud;
• What to look for when choosing a cloud partner; and
• What businesses should stop doing immediately, and where to redirect that energy instead.
Don't miss the discussion. ]]> Technology Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:06:00 +0200 0 0 A smarter approach to cloud for South African businesses 0 0 TechCentral full 21:08 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1699585 https://iono.fm/e/1699585 Formerly known as Channel VAS, Optasia was founded in 2012 as a single-country airtime credit provider. It listed on the JSE main board on 4 November 2025 at R19/share – top of the range, and oversubscribed several times. FirstRand took a 20.1% stake ahead of the IPO and has since raised it to 26.1%.
Today, Optasia’s AI-driven credit decisioning platform operates in 38 countries through mobile operators – MTN and Vodacom among them – and financial institutions, serving more than 120 million monthly active users and making 1.5 billion credit decisions a month. Microfinancing now generates 72% of revenue, overtaking the airtime advance business on which the company was built.
In the interview, with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Anglada discusses:
• What happens in the 30 seconds it takes an unbanked customer in Accra to get a loan – and why partner banks, the “lenders on record”, carry none of the risk;
• The algorithms behind it: more than 5 000 data points per customer, models tailored to each market and a blended default rate of just 1.2% on unsecured loans with no collateral – and no blacklisting of defaulters;
• Optasia’s plans for South Africa, where Anglada sees 15-20 million people without proper access to credit – and why local banks will be the channel;
• The Nigerian regulatory dispute that suspended its airtime credit services – a suspension Anglada calls “a little bit aggressive”;
• Why Optasia chose the JSE over London, and how it works with FirstRand; and
• The road to 2030: new markets including Ethiopia, Egypt and Mozambique, plus SME lending, buy now, pay later and a “virtual credit card” now in testing.
Optasia reports interim results in September, with revenue guided up by more than 50%. Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:26:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | How Optasia lends billions to people banks can’t see 0 0 TechCentral full 25:38 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1699584 https://iono.fm/e/1699584 Formerly known as Channel VAS, Optasia was founded in 2012 as a single-country airtime credit provider. It listed on the JSE main board on 4 November 2025 at R19/share – top of the range, and oversubscribed several times. FirstRand took a 20.1% stake ahead of the IPO and has since raised it to 26.1%.
Today, Optasia’s AI-driven credit decisioning platform operates in 38 countries through mobile operators – MTN and Vodacom among them – and financial institutions, serving more than 120 million monthly active users and making 1.5 billion credit decisions a month. Microfinancing now generates 72% of revenue, overtaking the airtime advance business on which the company was built.
In the interview, with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Anglada discusses:
• What happens in the 30 seconds it takes an unbanked customer in Accra to get a loan – and why partner banks, the “lenders on record”, carry none of the risk;
• The algorithms behind it: more than 5 000 data points per customer, models tailored to each market and a blended default rate of just 1.2% on unsecured loans with no collateral – and no blacklisting of defaulters;
• Optasia’s plans for South Africa, where Anglada sees 15-20 million people without proper access to credit – and why local banks will be the channel;
• The Nigerian regulatory dispute that suspended its airtime credit services – a suspension Anglada calls “a little bit aggressive”;
• Why Optasia chose the JSE over London, and how it works with FirstRand; and
• The road to 2030: new markets including Ethiopia, Egypt and Mozambique, plus SME lending, buy now, pay later and a “virtual credit card” now in testing.
Optasia reports interim results in September, with revenue guided up by more than 50%. Don’t miss the discussion! ]]> Technology Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:25:00 +0200 0 0 How Optasia lends billions to people banks can’t see 0 0 TechCentral full 25:38 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1699063 https://iono.fm/e/1699063 The guide was born of the basic questions that keep surfacing: what is a kilowatt-hour? Where will I charge, and will the plug fit? After a lifetime of mindless refuelling at petrol stations, charging is suddenly something owners must think about. The pair's advice is to demystify the maths.
The cost and battery fears, they argue, are largely misplaced. Public fast-charging still works out at about 60% of the running cost of petrol, home charging closer to 25% -- and less still on solar. Early Teslas are passing 560 000km with battery health of 85-88%, no manufacturer offers a battery warranty shorter than eight years, and chemistry is advancing fast, from cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate cells to sodium-ion batteries now arriving.
South Africa, the pair believe, is approaching its tipping point. The global oil shock has pushed EVs into the mainstream conversation -- and cleared dealer stock in the process. The official numbers understate the shift: industry association Naamsa counted just 1 088 battery-electric sales in 2025, but that excludes BYD and other Chinese brands that don't report locally -- and sales nearly doubled year on year in the first quarter of 2026.
Counting the unreported brands, about 500 EVs are now being sold every month, the guests estimate, and Cress predicts about 6 000 for the year. True inflection -- 5% of new vehicle sales -- needs 2 000 sales month, with the under-R400 000 segment, where the pair say two-thirds of South African vehicle buying happens, the battleground to watch.
Their advice for prospective buyers: know why you're in the market before falling for the shiny technology -- and above all, drive one. As Kelly puts it: if you haven't driven an EV, don't tell him they're rubbish.
Don't miss a great discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:41:00 +0200 0 0 Everything you wanted to know about EVs but were afraid to ask 0 0 TechCentral full 19:27 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1699062 https://iono.fm/e/1699062 The guide was born of the basic questions that keep surfacing: what is a kilowatt-hour? Where will I charge, and will the plug fit? After a lifetime of mindless refuelling at petrol stations, charging is suddenly something owners must think about. The pair's advice is to demystify the maths.
The cost and battery fears, they argue, are largely misplaced. Public fast-charging still works out at about 60% of the running cost of petrol, home charging closer to 25% -- and less still on solar. Early Teslas are passing 560 000km with battery health of 85-88%, no manufacturer offers a battery warranty shorter than eight years, and chemistry is advancing fast, from cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate cells to sodium-ion batteries now arriving.
South Africa, the pair believe, is approaching its tipping point. The global oil shock has pushed EVs into the mainstream conversation -- and cleared dealer stock in the process. The official numbers understate the shift: industry association Naamsa counted just 1 088 battery-electric sales in 2025, but that excludes BYD and other Chinese brands that don't report locally -- and sales nearly doubled year on year in the first quarter of 2026.
Counting the unreported brands, about 500 EVs are now being sold every month, the guests estimate, and Cress predicts about 6 000 for the year. True inflection -- 5% of new vehicle sales -- needs 2 000 sales month, with the under-R400 000 segment, where the pair say two-thirds of South African vehicle buying happens, the battleground to watch.
Their advice for prospective buyers: know why you're in the market before falling for the shiny technology -- and above all, drive one. As Kelly puts it: if you haven't driven an EV, don't tell him they're rubbish.
Don't miss a great discussion! ]]> Automotive Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:38:00 +0200 0 0 Everything you wanted to know about EVs but were afraid to ask 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 19:27 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1698060 https://iono.fm/e/1698060
TechCentral is proud to present the first episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, our new interview show about electric vehicles and the fast-changing world of e-mobility in South Africa. In the debut episode, host William Kelly speaks to John Ford, sales manager at Aeversa, a fleet-focused electrification specialist helping some of South Africa's biggest logistics operators make the switch from diesel to electric.
Ford’s central message is that electrifying a fleet is not about swapping every diesel truck for a battery-powered one. Each depot has its own energy profile – municipal tariff structures, grid capacity, demand charges and time-of-use rates – and the trick is matching the right vehicles, routes and charging strategies to each site. Get it right, he says, and the savings flow: solar charging over midday, battery storage to bridge expensive evening peaks and cheap off-peak grid power overnight.
The numbers from Aeversa’s work with Takealot Fulfilment Services – the e-commerce giant’s logistics arm – back him up. What began in 2022 as a single imported electric truck covering 15 000km in a proof-of-concept trial grew to a 10-vehicle pilot that delivered an average 14% saving in total cost of ownership – before any solar or battery storage was added. With the fleet expanded to 21 vehicles and renewables in the mix, average savings climbed to 16%, peaking at 22% in some months.
Today the fleet numbers 35 vehicles consuming about 1.2GWh/year, with solar providing 60-82% of that energy. Aeversa expects savings of 18-20% on average – and, with global oil prices rattled by the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially more than 30%.
“When you go electric, you can use those savings to expand your fleet or invest in solar and battery storage – and that adds more savings. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle,” said Ford.
Don't miss a great discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:56:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels with Wills: The rands-and-cents case for electric trucks 0 0 TechCentral full 22:13 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1698059 https://iono.fm/e/1698059
TechCentral is proud to present the first episode of Watts & Wheels with Wills, our new interview show about electric vehicles and the fast-changing world of e-mobility in South Africa. In the debut episode, host William Kelly speaks to John Ford, sales manager at Aeversa, a fleet-focused electrification specialist helping some of South Africa's biggest logistics operators make the switch from diesel to electric.
Ford’s central message is that electrifying a fleet is not about swapping every diesel truck for a battery-powered one. Each depot has its own energy profile – municipal tariff structures, grid capacity, demand charges and time-of-use rates – and the trick is matching the right vehicles, routes and charging strategies to each site. Get it right, he says, and the savings flow: solar charging over midday, battery storage to bridge expensive evening peaks and cheap off-peak grid power overnight.
The numbers from Aeversa’s work with Takealot Fulfilment Services – the e-commerce giant’s logistics arm – back him up. What began in 2022 as a single imported electric truck covering 15 000km in a proof-of-concept trial grew to a 10-vehicle pilot that delivered an average 14% saving in total cost of ownership – before any solar or battery storage was added. With the fleet expanded to 21 vehicles and renewables in the mix, average savings climbed to 16%, peaking at 22% in some months.
Today the fleet numbers 35 vehicles consuming about 1.2GWh/year, with solar providing 60-82% of that energy. Aeversa expects savings of 18-20% on average – and, with global oil prices rattled by the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially more than 30%.
“When you go electric, you can use those savings to expand your fleet or invest in solar and battery storage – and that adds more savings. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle,” said Ford.
Don't miss a great discussion! ]]> Automotive Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:54:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels with Wills: The rands-and-cents case for electric trucks 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 22:13 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1694142 https://iono.fm/e/1694142 In episode 7, William and Duncan get stuck into:
Ferrari's first EV – and the meme storm that greeted it. Is the departure from Maranello DNA brave or bewildering? And with Jony Ive involved in the design, are we looking at a glimpse of the Apple car that never was?
How to build a car, part 2 – continuing last episode's deep dive, William unpacks how "local content value" really works, why local plants no longer build the sub-R400 000 cars that make up 64% of South African sales – and why the tariff question is becoming impossible to ignore as India signs a trade deal with Europe and Morocco builds EV factories.
An interview with Mike Whitfield, CEO of Stellantis South Africa, on the group's plans for the local market – including a possible play in micromobility.
The death of the subscription model – why paying monthly for heated seats deserved to fail, and how all-inclusive Chinese cars helped kill it.
Robotaxis get real – Hyundai's Motional targets Las Vegas by end-2026, while Tesla's full self-driving goes live on European roads.
Solid-state batteries – Finland's Donut Lab claims 400Wh/kg and a website – donutbelieve.com – to prove the sceptics wrong.
Mad Chinese cars – a gargantuan luxury SUV with zero-gravity massage seats (foot massage included) and BYD's Fang Cheng Bao two-seater – the electric sports car the hosts reckon Ferrari should have built.
The episode closes with Hot or Not, where the Ferrari EV and Toyota's R1.18-million bZ4X – the company's first battery-electric model for South Africa – both feel the heat.
Watch S1E6 of Watts & Wheels now. Don’t forget to subscribe, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:19:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E7: 'Ferrari's EV breaks the internet' 0 0 TechCentral full 1:05:20 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1694141 https://iono.fm/e/1694141 In episode 7, William and Duncan get stuck into:
Ferrari's first EV – and the meme storm that greeted it. Is the departure from Maranello DNA brave or bewildering? And with Jony Ive involved in the design, are we looking at a glimpse of the Apple car that never was?
How to build a car, part 2 – continuing last episode's deep dive, William unpacks how "local content value" really works, why local plants no longer build the sub-R400 000 cars that make up 64% of South African sales – and why the tariff question is becoming impossible to ignore as India signs a trade deal with Europe and Morocco builds EV factories.
An interview with Mike Whitfield, CEO of Stellantis South Africa, on the group's plans for the local market – including a possible play in micromobility.
The death of the subscription model – why paying monthly for heated seats deserved to fail, and how all-inclusive Chinese cars helped kill it.
Robotaxis get real – Hyundai's Motional targets Las Vegas by end-2026, while Tesla's full self-driving goes live on European roads.
Solid-state batteries – Finland's Donut Lab claims 400Wh/kg and a website – donutbelieve.com – to prove the sceptics wrong.
Mad Chinese cars – a gargantuan luxury SUV with zero-gravity massage seats (foot massage included) and BYD's Fang Cheng Bao two-seater – the electric sports car the hosts reckon Ferrari should have built.
The episode closes with Hot or Not, where the Ferrari EV and Toyota's R1.18-million bZ4X – the company's first battery-electric model for South Africa – both feel the heat.
Watch S1E6 of Watts & Wheels now. Don’t forget to subscribe, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues. ]]> Automotive Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:17:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E7: 'Ferrari's EV breaks the internet' 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 1:05:20 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1691844 https://iono.fm/e/1691844 Built on Google's Gemini models, Penny lets customers build a grocery basket by asking for what they want in their own words – by voice, text or photo – instead of searching and scrolling. Tap the "Ask" button, request a carbonara recipe, and Penny returns the method alongside a carousel of options for each ingredient to drop into the basket. It handles re-orders, meal planning to a budget and ingredient substitutions, and it reads photographs, too: Ferigolli describes snapping a handwritten shopping list and having Penny build the basket from it.
In the conversation, Ferigolli is candid about the limits. Penny does not place orders yet – it assembles the basket and hands the customer back to checkout – and its language support, while broad, is stronger by voice than by text and still maturing for South Africa's African languages. He explains why Pick n Pay tested several large language models before settling on Gemini, how the system draws on the app's own search, order history and Smart Shopper data rather than plugging Gemini straight into its databases, and where a retail-media layer fits in.
For more detail on the launch, see TechCentral’s full report on Penny and how it works.
Ferigolli discusses:
• How conversational shopping changes the asap! experience
• Why Gemini won on accuracy, speed and cost
• What Penny can and can't do at launch
• The multilingual and multimodal ambitions behind it
• How the 2025 asap! rebuild set this up, and what comes next
Pick n Pay is "a little bit behind" in online grocery, Ferigolli concedes in the podcast – but with Penny and the features to follow, he reckons it will "get ahead really, really fast".
Don't miss the discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 02 Jul 2026 15:49:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Pick n Pay’s Enrico Ferigolli on Penny, the AI that shops for you 0 0 TechCentral full 23:15 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1691843 https://iono.fm/e/1691843 Built on Google's Gemini models, Penny lets customers build a grocery basket by asking for what they want in their own words – by voice, text or photo – instead of searching and scrolling. Tap the "Ask" button, request a carbonara recipe, and Penny returns the method alongside a carousel of options for each ingredient to drop into the basket. It handles re-orders, meal planning to a budget and ingredient substitutions, and it reads photographs, too: Ferigolli describes snapping a handwritten shopping list and having Penny build the basket from it.
In the conversation, Ferigolli is candid about the limits. Penny does not place orders yet – it assembles the basket and hands the customer back to checkout – and its language support, while broad, is stronger by voice than by text and still maturing for South Africa's African languages. He explains why Pick n Pay tested several large language models before settling on Gemini, how the system draws on the app's own search, order history and Smart Shopper data rather than plugging Gemini straight into its databases, and where a retail-media layer fits in.
For more detail on the launch, see TechCentral’s full report on Penny and how it works.
Ferigolli discusses:
• How conversational shopping changes the asap! experience
• Why Gemini won on accuracy, speed and cost
• What Penny can and can't do at launch
• The multilingual and multimodal ambitions behind it
• How the 2025 asap! rebuild set this up, and what comes next
Pick n Pay is "a little bit behind" in online grocery, Ferigolli concedes in the podcast – but with Penny and the features to follow, he reckons it will "get ahead really, really fast".
Don't miss the discussion. ]]> Technology Thu, 02 Jul 2026 15:48:00 +0200 0 0 Pick n Pay’s Enrico Ferigolli on Penny, the AI that shops for you 0 0 TechCentral full 23:15 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1691348 https://iono.fm/e/1691348 In this episode of TCS+, host Nkosinathi Ndlovu sits down with Silvia Schollenberger, chief commercial officer at Tracker, to unpack what that evolution means for South African businesses.

Schollenberger explains how the questions fleet managers and C-suite decision-makers are bringing to Tracker have changed significantly over the past three to five years.

Watch the video

Where procurement conversations once centred on cost-per-unit tracked, customers now want to understand how fleet intelligence can reduce total operating costs, improve driver safety and unlock strategic advantage.

Schollenberger walks through the typical technology journey a business takes – from basic asset protection to a fully integrated fleet intelligence stack – and identifies the triggers that tend to accelerate that shift.

The conversation gets into the practical realities of fragmentation: what businesses actually lose, commercially and operationally, when they run disconnected point solutions that don’t talk to each other. Schollenberger also shares an anonymised case study illustrating how fleet intelligence drove outcomes that went well beyond efficiency metrics, influencing strategic decision-making at the highest level.
On the vendor selection side, she flags the most common mistakes fleet managers make when evaluating telematics solutions and outlines what “end to end” genuinely looks like for a Tracker customer through solutions offered in partnership with Geotab International. Safety, she emphasises, remains foundational – and she highlights some of the newest features available to help protect both drivers and assets in the field.
The episode closes with a look at how Tracker and the broader South African telematics industry stack up against global peers – a useful benchmark for any business trying to gauge where local capability sits relative to international best practice.
Whether you manage a handful of vehicles or a large national fleet, this episode offers a clear-eyed view of where fleet technology is heading and how to make it work for your business. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:16:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | How Tracker is turning vehicle data into business strategy 0 0 TechCentral full 13:17 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1691346 https://iono.fm/e/1691346 In this episode of TCS+, host Nkosinathi Ndlovu sits down with Silvia Schollenberger, chief commercial officer at Tracker, to unpack what that evolution means for South African businesses.

Schollenberger explains how the questions fleet managers and C-suite decision-makers are bringing to Tracker have changed significantly over the past three to five years.

Watch the video

Where procurement conversations once centred on cost-per-unit tracked, customers now want to understand how fleet intelligence can reduce total operating costs, improve driver safety and unlock strategic advantage.

Schollenberger walks through the typical technology journey a business takes – from basic asset protection to a fully integrated fleet intelligence stack – and identifies the triggers that tend to accelerate that shift.

The conversation gets into the practical realities of fragmentation: what businesses actually lose, commercially and operationally, when they run disconnected point solutions that don’t talk to each other. Schollenberger also shares an anonymised case study illustrating how fleet intelligence drove outcomes that went well beyond efficiency metrics, influencing strategic decision-making at the highest level.
On the vendor selection side, she flags the most common mistakes fleet managers make when evaluating telematics solutions and outlines what “end to end” genuinely looks like for a Tracker customer through solutions offered in partnership with Geotab International. Safety, she emphasises, remains foundational – and she highlights some of the newest features available to help protect both drivers and assets in the field.
The episode closes with a look at how Tracker and the broader South African telematics industry stack up against global peers – a useful benchmark for any business trying to gauge where local capability sits relative to international best practice.
Whether you manage a handful of vehicles or a large national fleet, this episode offers a clear-eyed view of where fleet technology is heading and how to make it work for your business. ]]> Technology Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:13:00 +0200 0 0 How Tracker is turning vehicle data into business strategy 0 0 TechCentral full 13:17 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1691033 https://iono.fm/e/1691033 In this episode of TCS+, Nathi Ndlovu speaks to David Spurway, IBM Power AI and security principal for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, about what sets Bob apart from the growing field of AI coding tools.
Bob’s roots trace back to IBM i, IBM’s integrated operating environment long used in enterprise and legacy deployments. That heritage is significant: while many AI coding tools target greenfield development, Bob is designed with organisations running legacy stacks – including IBM i and mainframes – firmly in mind. That said, Bob’s capabilities extend well beyond those environments, making it relevant to a broader range of enterprise development teams.
One of the more distinctive aspects of Bob is how IBM has positioned it – not as a traditional IDE but as a development partner. The “anthropomorphisation” is deliberate: Bob is designed to collaborate, not just autocomplete. That partnership quality shows up most clearly in onboarding. Rather than waiting months for a new developer to gain enough familiarity with a code base to contribute meaningfully, Bob can dramatically compress that ramp-up time by helping them navigate and understand existing code from day one.
Bob also performs real-time code reviews, a capability that Spurway suggests could prompt teams to rethink their development workflows altogether. IBM provides support to help organisations manage that transition, including guidance on integrating Bob into existing processes. Partners such as Edgetec play an important role in helping organisations manage this shift.
On the question of language support, Spurway addresses how teams can verify whether their specific tools and languages are compatible with Bob. Security is another focal point: the underlying models powering Bob are discussed in the context of enterprise risk, with Spurway explaining how Bob's code generation is designed to follow security best practices.
For those looking to explore the platform, Spurway outlines how individuals and organisations can access Bob, and closes with a summary of the key benefits for developers, teams and enterprises alike.
Don’t miss the interview. — © 2026 NewsCentral Media
Suggested tags (people and company names only): David Spurway, Nathi Ndlovu, IBM, Edgetec ]]> Technology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:11:00 +0200 0 0 IBM Bob: an AI-powered ‘development partner’ for the enterprise 0 0 TechCentral full 22:42 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1691034 https://iono.fm/e/1691034 In this episode of TCS+, Nathi Ndlovu speaks to David Spurway, IBM Power AI and security principal for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, about what sets Bob apart from the growing field of AI coding tools.
Bob’s roots trace back to IBM i, IBM’s integrated operating environment long used in enterprise and legacy deployments. That heritage is significant: while many AI coding tools target greenfield development, Bob is designed with organisations running legacy stacks – including IBM i and mainframes – firmly in mind. That said, Bob’s capabilities extend well beyond those environments, making it relevant to a broader range of enterprise development teams.
One of the more distinctive aspects of Bob is how IBM has positioned it – not as a traditional IDE but as a development partner. The “anthropomorphisation” is deliberate: Bob is designed to collaborate, not just autocomplete. That partnership quality shows up most clearly in onboarding. Rather than waiting months for a new developer to gain enough familiarity with a code base to contribute meaningfully, Bob can dramatically compress that ramp-up time by helping them navigate and understand existing code from day one.
Bob also performs real-time code reviews, a capability that Spurway suggests could prompt teams to rethink their development workflows altogether. IBM provides support to help organisations manage that transition, including guidance on integrating Bob into existing processes. Partners such as Edgetec play an important role in helping organisations manage this shift.
On the question of language support, Spurway addresses how teams can verify whether their specific tools and languages are compatible with Bob. Security is another focal point: the underlying models powering Bob are discussed in the context of enterprise risk, with Spurway explaining how Bob's code generation is designed to follow security best practices.
For those looking to explore the platform, Spurway outlines how individuals and organisations can access Bob, and closes with a summary of the key benefits for developers, teams and enterprises alike.
Don’t miss the interview. TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:11:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | IBM Bob: an AI-powered ‘development partner’ for the enterprise 0 0 TechCentral full 22:42 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1686810 https://iono.fm/e/1686810 William opens with a deep dive into why locally sold vehicles are priced the way they are, unpacking the difference between SKD (semi-knocked-down) and CKD (completely-knocked-down) assembly, the all-important “local content value” that drives a car maker’s tariffs and incentives, and why economies of scale make it so hard for a country building thousands of cars a year to compete with rivals building millions.
The episode’s centrepiece is an interview with Donald MacKay, CEO of XA Global Trade Advisors, who demystifies how South Africa’s automotive support regime has worked since the late 1990s – and who actually pays for it.
The hosts then turn to the Chinese surge in local showrooms: Chinese brands already accounting for roughly 15% of the market once GWM, MG and others are counted in; and a run through the best-sellers, led by the Chery Tiggo 4.
Then it’s review time. William drives the all-electric Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce – 207kW, made in Poland, yours for R995 000 – and falls hopelessly in love (it’s rather sad to watch, if we’re honest).
Also in the mix: a jaw-dropping Volvo safety clip in which an EX60 is launched – airborne – into a steel pole; and a Rory Sutherland-inspired riff on why the self-driving car isn’t really a car at all but a “room on wheels” – a mobile office, a meeting room, even an income-generating asset – plus what an acceptable robot-driver accident rate should look like next to human drivers.
The show closes with Hot or Not. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 17 Jun 2026 15:31:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E6: ‘A flawless Alfa and a bakkie that divides’ 0 0 TechCentral full 1:15:07 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1686808 https://iono.fm/e/1686808 William opens with a deep dive into why locally sold vehicles are priced the way they are, unpacking the difference between SKD (semi-knocked-down) and CKD (completely-knocked-down) assembly, the all-important “local content value” that drives a car maker’s tariffs and incentives, and why economies of scale make it so hard for a country building thousands of cars a year to compete with rivals building millions.
The episode’s centrepiece is an interview with Donald MacKay, CEO of XA Global Trade Advisors, who demystifies how South Africa’s automotive support regime has worked since the late 1990s – and who actually pays for it.
The hosts then turn to the Chinese surge in local showrooms: Chinese brands already accounting for roughly 15% of the market once GWM, MG and others are counted in; and a run through the best-sellers, led by the Chery Tiggo 4.
Then it’s review time. William drives the all-electric Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce – 207kW, made in Poland, yours for R995 000 – and falls hopelessly in love (it’s rather sad to watch, if we’re honest).
Also in the mix: a jaw-dropping Volvo safety clip in which an EX60 is launched – airborne – into a steel pole; and a Rory Sutherland-inspired riff on why the self-driving car isn’t really a car at all but a “room on wheels” – a mobile office, a meeting room, even an income-generating asset – plus what an acceptable robot-driver accident rate should look like next to human drivers.
The show closes with Hot or Not. ]]> Automotive Wed, 17 Jun 2026 15:30:00 +0200 0 0 S1E6: ‘A flawless Alfa and a bakkie that divides’ 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 1:15:07 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1683801 https://iono.fm/e/1683801 Watch episode 5 now
In episode 5, William and Duncan dive into:
• The new Suzuki Across, an entry-level SUV priced from R350 000 to R465 000 that squares up against Suzuki’s own Grand Vitara – and the welcome return of physical knobs and buttons, a trend Volkswagen is following, too.
• Dongfeng’s expanding EV range – the Nami 01, Nami 06 and E3 – a clutch of sub-R500 000 models turning up the heat in South Africa’s budget EV price war.
• Why fuel pain may be a tipping point: AutoTrader reports a jump in EV searches after the latest petrol and diesel hikes, with cheap used EVs vanishing fast.
• The spiralling cost of car ownership, from ad valorem “bracket creep” to research showing it takes nearly 15 000 minimum-wage hours to buy a VW Polo locally, against roughly 1 600 in the UK.
• A Polo milestone – 500 000 of the current generation exported – and finance minister Enoch Godongwana lifting the ministerial car price cap to R1.1-million.
• Whether Johannesburg’s City Power should be rolling out public EV chargers while it struggles to keep the lights on.
The “Crazy Chinese” segment serves up a Yangwang – BYD’s luxury arm – swimming across a lake, before the episode’s highlight: an in-studio interview with Gary Davies, the South African behind a purpose-built electric game-viewing vehicle. Dubbed the “Bentley of the bush”, it pairs a 63kWh battery and two 150kW motors with clip-on body panels and a biomimicry-inspired cooling fan, engineered locally with the University of Pretoria.
William then lives with Leapmotor’s C10 range-extended EV for a week and comes away pleasantly surprised – seriously comfortable, remarkably quiet and frugal, if let down by a fiddly key and an all-touchscreen cabin.
The show signs off with Hot or Not. TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:16:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E5: ‘A Bentley of the bush and a car that swims’ 0 0 TechCentral full 1:01:38 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1683799 https://iono.fm/e/1683799 Watch episode 5 now
In episode 5, William and Duncan dive into:
• The new Suzuki Across, an entry-level SUV priced from R350 000 to R465 000 that squares up against Suzuki’s own Grand Vitara – and the welcome return of physical knobs and buttons, a trend Volkswagen is following, too.
• Dongfeng’s expanding EV range – the Nami 01, Nami 06 and E3 – a clutch of sub-R500 000 models turning up the heat in South Africa’s budget EV price war.
• Why fuel pain may be a tipping point: AutoTrader reports a jump in EV searches after the latest petrol and diesel hikes, with cheap used EVs vanishing fast.
• The spiralling cost of car ownership, from ad valorem “bracket creep” to research showing it takes nearly 15 000 minimum-wage hours to buy a VW Polo locally, against roughly 1 600 in the UK.
• A Polo milestone – 500 000 of the current generation exported – and finance minister Enoch Godongwana lifting the ministerial car price cap to R1.1-million.
• Whether Johannesburg’s City Power should be rolling out public EV chargers while it struggles to keep the lights on.
The “Crazy Chinese” segment serves up a Yangwang – BYD’s luxury arm – swimming across a lake, before the episode’s highlight: an in-studio interview with Gary Davies, the South African behind a purpose-built electric game-viewing vehicle. Dubbed the “Bentley of the bush”, it pairs a 63kWh battery and two 150kW motors with clip-on body panels and a biomimicry-inspired cooling fan, engineered locally with the University of Pretoria.
William then lives with Leapmotor’s C10 range-extended EV for a week and comes away pleasantly surprised – seriously comfortable, remarkably quiet and frugal, if let down by a fiddly key and an all-touchscreen cabin. ]]> Automotive Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:08:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E5: ‘A Bentley of the bush and a car that swims’ 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 1:01:38 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1680331 https://iono.fm/e/1680331 --
Johnson Idesoh, group chief information and technology officer at Absa, says AI in all its forms – generative, agentic and the AI now being wielded by cybercriminals – is the single biggest topic on his desk, but cautions that it remains a tool that has to be tied directly to business strategy and customer outcomes to deliver value.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Idesoh said AI is maturing rapidly into heavily regulated industries such as financial services, and that banks must use the same technology to counter adversaries who are themselves deploying it.
Idesoh has held senior technology leadership roles across several large organisations, including group CIO at Old Mutual and leadership positions at insurer Aviva and pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca, before joining Absa as group CTO.
In the interview, Idesoh unpacks the thinking behind Absa's R2.4-billion software impairment in its 2025 financial year – a 13-fold increase on the prior year's write-off – explaining that it was driven not by a single large asset but by more than 100 smaller ones, and reflected three things:
• A fundamental shift in group strategy under new group CEO Kenny Fihla towards a Pan-African, client-led model;
• A changing regulatory regime; and
• The accelerating pace of technological change in AI, data and cybersecurity.
He also reflects on how banking technology has evolved – from the water-cooled mainframes of the 1990s to today’s far smaller IBM z16 machines and the move towards cloud and service-based consumption – and why the real challenge is not the mainframe itself but the decades-old Cobol software paradigms still running on it.
Listen to the interview
Idesoh also discusses:
• The noise around Anthropic’s “Mythos” model and what AI-driven vulnerability discovery means for bank cybersecurity, arguing that organisations should not panic but must become adept at using AI to find and remediate vulnerabilities at speed;
• Whether such models should be released to the public immediately or to large institutions first; the impact of AI on software development jobs, and his view that the traditional junior-to-senior developer pyramid may give way to apprenticeship-style models;
• How Absa is encouraging its technology talent to keep pace through leadership, early-adopter advocates and gamified celebration of new skills;
• The bank’s deployment of agentic AI, including its customer-facing AI agent and an internal IT-support agent that has handled queries from 11 000 colleagues with a 90% resolution rate; and
• His own path into technology, from an aspiring airline pilot who realised aircraft were becoming “flying computers” to a career that began on a BBC Micro.
Don’t miss any of the other great interviews on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 28 May 2026 08:12:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | Absa CITO Johnson Idesoh on AI, cyber and the future of banking 0 0 TechCentral full 38:39 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1680330 https://iono.fm/e/1680330 --
Johnson Idesoh, group chief information and technology officer at Absa, says AI in all its forms – generative, agentic and the AI now being wielded by cybercriminals – is the single biggest topic on his desk, but cautions that it remains a tool that has to be tied directly to business strategy and customer outcomes to deliver value.
Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Idesoh said AI is maturing rapidly into heavily regulated industries such as financial services, and that banks must use the same technology to counter adversaries who are themselves deploying it.
Idesoh has held senior technology leadership roles across several large organisations, including group CIO at Old Mutual and leadership positions at insurer Aviva and pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca, before joining Absa as group CTO.
In the interview, Idesoh unpacks the thinking behind Absa's R2.4-billion software impairment in its 2025 financial year – a 13-fold increase on the prior year's write-off – explaining that it was driven not by a single large asset but by more than 100 smaller ones, and reflected three things:
• A fundamental shift in group strategy under new group CEO Kenny Fihla towards a Pan-African, client-led model;
• A changing regulatory regime; and
• The accelerating pace of technological change in AI, data and cybersecurity.
He also reflects on how banking technology has evolved – from the water-cooled mainframes of the 1990s to today’s far smaller IBM z16 machines and the move towards cloud and service-based consumption – and why the real challenge is not the mainframe itself but the decades-old Cobol software paradigms still running on it.
Listen to the interview
Idesoh also discusses:
• The noise around Anthropic’s “Mythos” model and what AI-driven vulnerability discovery means for bank cybersecurity, arguing that organisations should not panic but must become adept at using AI to find and remediate vulnerabilities at speed;
• Whether such models should be released to the public immediately or to large institutions first; the impact of AI on software development jobs, and his view that the traditional junior-to-senior developer pyramid may give way to apprenticeship-style models;
• How Absa is encouraging its technology talent to keep pace through leadership, early-adopter advocates and gamified celebration of new skills;
• The bank’s deployment of agentic AI, including its customer-facing AI agent and an internal IT-support agent that has handled queries from 11 000 colleagues with a 90% resolution rate; and
• His own path into technology, from an aspiring airline pilot who realised aircraft were becoming “flying computers” to a career that began on a BBC Micro.
Don’t miss any of the other great interviews on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO. TechCentral]]> Management Thu, 28 May 2026 08:09:00 +0200 0 0 Absa CITO Johnson Idesoh on AI, cyber and the future of banking 0 0 TechCentral full 38:39 Meet the CIO https://iono.fm/e/1676989 https://iono.fm/e/1676989 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Joubert Roux, co-founder and director of Charge, joins TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu to make the case for the company’s ambitious, R1.8-billion plan to roll out a charging station every 150km along South Africa’s national highways – and to explain why he believes the company is taking on “a timing risk, but not a business risk”.
Roux walks TechCentral through the December 2024 launch of Charge’s first site near Wolmaransstad and the unit economics underpinning the roll-out: just seven vehicles a day at each station are needed to reach Ebitda break-even. He also explains why every facility is designed to operate entirely off-grid, citing data showing that EVs charged on Eskom’s coal-heavy network emit 5.8 tonnes of carbon-dioxide a year, more than a comparable petrol car at 4.4 tonnes.
The conversation also tackles Charge’s unconventional fundraising strategy: a tokenised public offering on Mesh rather than a JSE listing, planned for June 2026. Roux argues that South Africa’s institutional capital is “extremely conservative” and that tokenisation will finally let ordinary investors into an infrastructure deal that has historically demanded R1-million minimums. The Development Bank of Southern Africa has already committed R100-million.
Roux and Ndlovu also discuss:
• How landowners hosting Charge stations receive 5% of charging revenue, and the rural economic development case that sits behind that model;
• The offtake agreement with transport aggregator Zimi covering 50% of capacity at upcoming N3 corridor sites;
• Charge’s formal objection to Sanral’s proposed policy giving it powers over businesses within 60m of national roads or 500m of interchanges, and the broader regulatory headwinds facing EV infrastructure;
• How BYD’s planned 1MW supercharger network and incumbent operators like GridCars – which already records 5 000 charge sessions a month – are reshaping the competitive landscape;
• Plans for 35MW truck-charging facilities and a long-term target of 120 stations across the national route network; and
• Roux’s prediction on when South Africa will hit its EV tipping point – and the two ingredients he says the market still needs: sub-R500 000 EVs and a genuinely reliable national charging network.
Don’t miss the discussion! ]]> Technology Mon, 18 May 2026 15:07:00 +0200 0 0 Charge’s R1.8-billion bet on an off-grid EV future 0 0 TechCentral full 37:49 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1676990 https://iono.fm/e/1676990 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Joubert Roux, co-founder and director of Charge, joins TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu to make the case for the company’s ambitious, R1.8-billion plan to roll out a charging station every 150km along South Africa’s national highways – and to explain why he believes the company is taking on “a timing risk, but not a business risk”.
Roux walks TechCentral through the December 2024 launch of Charge’s first site near Wolmaransstad and the unit economics underpinning the roll-out: just seven vehicles a day at each station are needed to reach Ebitda break-even. He also explains why every facility is designed to operate entirely off-grid, citing data showing that EVs charged on Eskom’s coal-heavy network emit 5.8 tonnes of carbon-dioxide a year, more than a comparable petrol car at 4.4 tonnes.
The conversation also tackles Charge’s unconventional fundraising strategy: a tokenised public offering on Mesh rather than a JSE listing, planned for June 2026. Roux argues that South Africa’s institutional capital is “extremely conservative” and that tokenisation will finally let ordinary investors into an infrastructure deal that has historically demanded R1-million minimums. The Development Bank of Southern Africa has already committed R100-million.
Roux and Ndlovu also discuss:
• How landowners hosting Charge stations receive 5% of charging revenue, and the rural economic development case that sits behind that model;
• The offtake agreement with transport aggregator Zimi covering 50% of capacity at upcoming N3 corridor sites;
• Charge’s formal objection to Sanral’s proposed policy giving it powers over businesses within 60m of national roads or 500m of interchanges, and the broader regulatory headwinds facing EV infrastructure;
• How BYD’s planned 1MW supercharger network and incumbent operators like GridCars – which already records 5 000 charge sessions a month – are reshaping the competitive landscape;
• Plans for 35MW truck-charging facilities and a long-term target of 120 stations across the national route network; and
• Roux’s prediction on when South Africa will hit its EV tipping point – and the two ingredients he says the market still needs: sub-R500 000 EVs and a genuinely reliable national charging network.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 18 May 2026 15:07:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Charge’s R1.8-billion bet on an off-grid EV future 0 0 TechCentral full 37:49 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1675431 https://iono.fm/e/1675431 Harrison uses The Up&Up Group’s own experience in experimenting with and implementing AI to glean insight into the gap between the large promises by the technology (and its Silicon Valley pundits) and harsh realities of stalling projects in enterprises, especially at the integration layer.
The conversation digs into the costs that rarely make it into a chief financial officer’s spreadsheet:
• Policy and governance, Harrison argues, are not soft considerations – they are line items, often substantial ones.
• The costs of error: the reputational damage, financial exposure and legal risk when copyrighted material slips into outputs or autonomous agents go off-script.
• Agents that run amok, with companies then only discovering the problem once the cloud bill lands.
Beyond the balance sheet, Harrison flags AI’s energy footprint as a societal cost the industry is still reckoning with.
AI adoption is accelerating despite these risks and Harrison describes the current moment as a kind of nuclear arms race, driven by share-price pressure and a deep fear of being last. Much of today’s AI spend, he suggests, is Fomo (“fear of missing out”) dressed up as strategy. For tech leaders trying to make sober decisions inside a hype cycle, separating signal from noise has become a leadership skill in its own right, he says.
Suggested solutions include a “test and learn” philosophy where many small, inexpensive AI experiments are run throughout an organisation before viable instances are scaled appropriately.
Harrison cautions against one-size-fits-all deployments and argues that governance must sit close to the work rather than only in the boardroom. Quarter-to-quarter measurable objectives matter, he says, but only if they live inside a long-term strategy.
Despite his sober-minded view on AI’s high costs, Harrison still has an optimistic perspective on the technology and its potential to transform society, especially on the African continent. While the developed world is using AI to get answers, Harrison suggests African organisations may end up using it to learn how to think – a subtle but important distinction, and a timely note for any leader weighing their next AI investment.
Don't miss this discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 13 May 2026 12:27:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | The Up&Up Group on the hidden cost of AI 0 0 TechCentral full 46:16 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1675429 https://iono.fm/e/1675429 Harrison uses The Up&Up Group’s own experience in experimenting with and implementing AI to glean insight into the gap between the large promises by the technology (and its Silicon Valley pundits) and harsh realities of stalling projects in enterprises, especially at the integration layer.
The conversation digs into the costs that rarely make it into a chief financial officer’s spreadsheet:
• Policy and governance, Harrison argues, are not soft considerations – they are line items, often substantial ones.
• The costs of error: the reputational damage, financial exposure and legal risk when copyrighted material slips into outputs or autonomous agents go off-script.
• Agents that run amok, with companies then only discovering the problem once the cloud bill lands.
Beyond the balance sheet, Harrison flags AI’s energy footprint as a societal cost the industry is still reckoning with.
AI adoption is accelerating despite these risks and Harrison describes the current moment as a kind of nuclear arms race, driven by share-price pressure and a deep fear of being last. Much of today’s AI spend, he suggests, is Fomo (“fear of missing out”) dressed up as strategy. For tech leaders trying to make sober decisions inside a hype cycle, separating signal from noise has become a leadership skill in its own right, he says.
Suggested solutions include a “test and learn” philosophy where many small, inexpensive AI experiments are run throughout an organisation before viable instances are scaled appropriately.
Harrison cautions against one-size-fits-all deployments and argues that governance must sit close to the work rather than only in the boardroom. Quarter-to-quarter measurable objectives matter, he says, but only if they live inside a long-term strategy.
Despite his sober-minded view on AI’s high costs, Harrison still has an optimistic perspective on the technology and its potential to transform society, especially on the African continent. While the developed world is using AI to get answers, Harrison suggests African organisations may end up using it to learn how to think – a subtle but important distinction, and a timely note for any leader weighing their next AI investment.
Don't miss this discussion. ]]> Technology Wed, 13 May 2026 12:26:00 +0200 0 0 The Up&Up Group on the hidden cost of AI 0 0 TechCentral full 46:16 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1672964 https://iono.fm/e/1672964 In this podcast conversation with Mpho Chitapi, 10X Investments senior investment consultant Michael Rossouw sets out what should happen, what often does, and where the costs lie.
When an employee resigns, their pension or provident fund does not automatically follow them. Money is frequently left behind in an old employer fund by default, or withdrawn in cash during the transition.
The cash option is the most damaging. Rossouw cautions against it not because the money is needed less in the short term, but because removing capital interrupts compounding in a way that is extremely difficult to recover from later, even on higher future earnings.
A point Rossouw made bluntly is worth restating, because it is widely misunderstood: under the Pension Funds Act, individuals do not own pension or provident funds. Only a company can establish one, and employees are members of an employer-sponsored fund rather than owners of it. When the employment ends, the relationship with the fund changes, too.
What individuals can own are retirement annuities and preservation funds. A preservation fund is the vehicle into which an employee can transfer their accumulated retirement savings when they leave a job, taking direct control of how the money is invested and what they pay to have it managed.
That control matters. A preservation fund lets the holder choose an asset allocation aligned to their risk profile and time horizon, and integrates with a retirement annuity or a new employer fund as part of a single retirement plan. Leaving money behind in an old employer fund offers none of those advantages.
Rossouw’s sharpest warning is on fees. Even a well-structured retirement plan can be quietly undermined by costs that compound in the same way returns do – only in the wrong direction. He urged savers to interrogate the effective annual cost (EAC) of any product they sign on for. A 1.5 percentage point difference in annual fees sounds modest, but compounded over a working lifetime it can erode a meaningful share of an eventual retirement balance.
Higher fees are not always justified by better performance, Rossouw says, and savers should be especially cautious about committing to high-cost products on long contracts.
He is more measured on the role of online calculators and AI-powered tools, which have made it easier than ever for individuals to model their own retirement scenarios. The tools are useful, he says, but their inputs and assumptions need to be checked carefully – and outputs interrogated rather than accepted at face value.
The underlying message is straightforward. Retirement planning when changing jobs does not require expertise. It requires attention, an understanding of the available vehicles and a clear-eyed view of what fees will cost over time. The decision made at the point of resignation – leave it, transfer it or cash it out – is one of the most consequential a person makes for their own future self.
It is, ultimately, your money. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 06 May 2026 09:23:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | The retirement decision most South Africans get wrong 0 0 TechCentral full 55:24 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1672963 https://iono.fm/e/1672963 In this podcast conversation with Mpho Chitapi, 10X Investments senior investment consultant Michael Rossouw sets out what should happen, what often does, and where the costs lie.
When an employee resigns, their pension or provident fund does not automatically follow them. Money is frequently left behind in an old employer fund by default, or withdrawn in cash during the transition. The cash option is the most damaging. Rossouw cautions against it not because the money is needed less in the short term, but because removing capital interrupts compounding in a way that is extremely difficult to recover from later, even on higher future earnings.
A point Rossouw made bluntly is worth restating, because it is widely misunderstood: under the Pension Funds Act, individuals do not own pension or provident funds. Only a company can establish one, and employees are members of an employer-sponsored fund rather than owners of it. When the employment ends, the relationship with the fund changes, too.
What individuals can own are retirement annuities and preservation funds. A preservation fund is the vehicle into which an employee can transfer their accumulated retirement savings when they leave a job, taking direct control of how the money is invested and what they pay to have it managed.
That control matters. A preservation fund lets the holder choose an asset allocation aligned to their risk profile and time horizon, and integrates with a retirement annuity or a new employer fund as part of a single retirement plan. Leaving money behind in an old employer fund offers none of those advantages.
Rossouw’s sharpest warning is on fees. Even a well-structured retirement plan can be quietly undermined by costs that compound in the same way returns do – only in the wrong direction. He urged savers to interrogate the effective annual cost (EAC) of any product they sign on for. A 1.5 percentage point difference in annual fees sounds modest, but compounded over a working lifetime it can erode a meaningful share of an eventual retirement balance.
Higher fees are not always justified by better performance, Rossouw says, and savers should be especially cautious about committing to high-cost products on long contracts.
He is more measured on the role of online calculators and AI-powered tools, which have made it easier than ever for individuals to model their own retirement scenarios. The tools are useful, he says, but their inputs and assumptions need to be checked carefully – and outputs interrogated rather than accepted at face value.
The underlying message is straightforward. Retirement planning when changing jobs does not require expertise. It requires attention, an understanding of the available vehicles and a clear-eyed view of what fees will cost over time. The decision made at the point of resignation – leave it, transfer it or cash it out – is one of the most consequential a person makes for their own future self.
It is, ultimately, your money. ]]> Technology Wed, 06 May 2026 09:22:00 +0200 0 0 The retirement decision most South Africans get wrong 0 0 TechCentral full 55:24 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1672095 https://iono.fm/e/1672095 In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to the company’s CEO, Braden van Breda, about the funding round and its mission to transform TB screening across Africa and Asia.
The round, led by the Steele Foundation for Hope, will fund the deployment of the Ostium – an AI-powered digital stethoscope that works in tandem with the company’s proprietary AI.TB model.
The device is designed to detect signals associated with tuberculosis in lung sounds in real time, putting point-of-care diagnostic capabilities into the hands of the nurses, pharmacists and community health workers who often serve as the first contact in resource-constrained health systems.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Van Breda explains why AI Diagnostics chose to tackle one of the world’s most underfunded diseases, and how an AI model can pick up TB signals that escape even trained clinicians. He also unpacks the painstaking work of building a TB-positive lung-sound dataset from scratch.
Van Breda also delves into:
• What the Ostium compares to a traditional stethoscope;
• How the company handles real-world recording conditions, from noisy clinics to paediatric patients and HIV co-infection;
• How AI Diagnostics stops the model from silently degrading as the device moves from a Khayelitsha clinic to rural Zambia or Vietnam;
• The company’s goal of securing World Health Organisation certification and the path towards that;
• How the Ostium is positioned against – or alongside – AI-assisted chest X-ray tools such as CAD4TB and Qure.ai's qXR; and
• What it would realistically take to put an Ostium in every primary healthcare clinic on the continent by 2030.
Don't miss the discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 04 May 2026 09:42:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | The Cape Town start-up listening for TB with AI 0 0 TechCentral full 36:59 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1672093 https://iono.fm/e/1672093 In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to the company’s CEO, Braden van Breda, about the funding round and its mission to transform TB screening across Africa and Asia.
The round, led by the Steele Foundation for Hope, will fund the deployment of the Ostium – an AI-powered digital stethoscope that works in tandem with the company’s proprietary AI.TB model.
The device is designed to detect signals associated with tuberculosis in lung sounds in real time, putting point-of-care diagnostic capabilities into the hands of the nurses, pharmacists and community health workers who often serve as the first contact in resource-constrained health systems.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Van Breda explains why AI Diagnostics chose to tackle one of the world’s most underfunded diseases, and how an AI model can pick up TB signals that escape even trained clinicians. He also unpacks the painstaking work of building a TB-positive lung-sound dataset from scratch.
Van Breda also delves into:
• What the Ostium compares to a traditional stethoscope;
• How the company handles real-world recording conditions, from noisy clinics to paediatric patients and HIV co-infection;
• How AI Diagnostics stops the model from silently degrading as the device moves from a Khayelitsha clinic to rural Zambia or Vietnam;
• The company’s goal of securing World Health Organisation certification and the path towards that;
• How the Ostium is positioned against – or alongside – AI-assisted chest X-ray tools such as CAD4TB and Qure.ai's qXR; and
• What it would realistically take to put an Ostium in every primary healthcare clinic on the continent by 2030.
Don't miss the discussion! ]]> Technology Mon, 04 May 2026 09:36:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | The Cape Town start-up listening for TB with AI 0 0 TechCentral full 36:59 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1667787 https://iono.fm/e/1667787 In this episode of TechCentral’s podcast series TCS+, Andre Eksteen, senior product manager for fibre to the business at Vox, discusses the rationale behind this strategy and the services Vox is offering as “the ISP for ISPs”.
Eksteen delves into:
• The thinking behind Vox’s move into the wholesale space;
• The detail regarding Vox’s operating model as an aggregator with no physical infrastructure of its own;
• The financial benefits ISPs derive from engage via an aggregator against connecting to a wholesaler themselves;
• How aggregation services lower the operational burden on retail ISPs;
• Vox’s white-labelling service and how wholesalers benefit from it;
• The tooling Vox providers to help ISPs run their businesses more efficiently;
• How Vox balances the potential internal conflict of interest arising from it being a retail competitor to the same ISPs to which it supplies wholesale services; and
• The impact the existence of a wholesale aggregator like Vox will have on the retail ISP market.
Don’t miss it! TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:18:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | ‘The ISP for ISPs’: Vox’s shift to wholesale aggregator 0 0 TechCentral full 16:56 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1667782 https://iono.fm/e/1667782 In this episode of TechCentral’s podcast series TCS+, Andre Eksteen, senior product manager for fibre to the business at Vox, discusses the rationale behind this strategy and the services Vox is offering as “the ISP for ISPs”.
Eksteen delves into:
• The thinking behind Vox’s move into the wholesale space;
• The detail regarding Vox’s operating model as an aggregator with no physical infrastructure of its own;
• The financial benefits ISPs derive from engage via an aggregator against connecting to a wholesaler themselves;
• How aggregation services lower the operational burden on retail ISPs;
• Vox’s white-labelling service and how wholesalers benefit from it;
• The tooling Vox providers to help ISPs run their businesses more efficiently;
• How Vox balances the potential internal conflict of interest arising from it being a retail competitor to the same ISPs to which it supplies wholesale services; and
• The impact the existence of a wholesale aggregator like Vox will have on the retail ISP market.
Don’t miss it! ]]> Technology Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:16:00 +0200 0 0 ‘The ISP for ISPs’: Vox’s shift to wholesale aggregator 0 0 TechCentral full 16:56 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1666326 https://iono.fm/e/1666326 That’s the view of DataGroupIT CEO Werner Lindemann, who joined Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show to unpack what business leaders should be doing about AI and information security.
Lindemann, who spent more than 30 years in senior roles at BCX and Clickatell before joining the security solutions distributor, says the African threat environment is no longer a watered-down version of what is happening elsewhere. Attackers are deploying the same AI-powered tools globally, and AI-enabled phishing campaigns now achieve click-through rates that traditional defences were never designed to withstand.
A bigger blind spot, he argues, is shadow AI – employees pasting sensitive data into unapproved AI tools without oversight. Lindemann says this is fast eclipsing the shadow IT problem of the past decade because the tools are free, frictionless and often invisible to security teams.
The conversation also tackles the credibility crisis facing identity verification. With AI now able to clone a CEO’s voice in real time or generate synthetic profiles that pass biometric checks, Lindemann believes traditional verification methods are fundamentally flawed. A big challenge is helping boards understand the issue in business rather than technical terms.
Lindemann also weighs in on the rise of the chief AI officer role, following Sanlam’s recent appointment, and on whether African organisations are equipped to adopt AI at the pace global peers are setting given the continent’s acute skills shortage.
The discussion closes on quantum computing. Lindemann challenges the conventional view that the quantum threat is a decade away, and outlines what business leaders should be doing now to prepare for the post-quantum cryptography world – even if the risk still feels distant. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:16:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Werner Lindemann on how AI is rewriting the infosec rulebook 0 0 TechCentral full 38:22 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1666325 https://iono.fm/e/1666325 That’s the view of DataGroupIT CEO Werner Lindemann, who joined Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show to unpack what business leaders should be doing about AI and information security.
Lindemann, who spent more than 30 years in senior roles at BCX and Clickatell before joining the security solutions distributor, says the African threat environment is no longer a watered-down version of what is happening elsewhere. Attackers are deploying the same AI-powered tools globally, and AI-enabled phishing campaigns now achieve click-through rates that traditional defences were never designed to withstand.
A bigger blind spot, he argues, is shadow AI – employees pasting sensitive data into unapproved AI tools without oversight. Lindemann says this is fast eclipsing the shadow IT problem of the past decade because the tools are free, frictionless and often invisible to security teams.
The conversation also tackles the credibility crisis facing identity verification. With AI now able to clone a CEO’s voice in real time or generate synthetic profiles that pass biometric checks, Lindemann believes traditional verification methods are fundamentally flawed. A big challenge is helping boards understand the issue in business rather than technical terms.
Lindemann also weighs in on the rise of the chief AI officer role, following Sanlam’s recent appointment, and on whether African organisations are equipped to adopt AI at the pace global peers are setting given the continent’s acute skills shortage.
The discussion closes on quantum computing. Lindemann challenges the conventional view that the quantum threat is a decade away, and outlines what business leaders should be doing now to prepare for the post-quantum cryptography world – even if the risk still feels distant. ]]> Technology Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:15:00 +0200 0 0 Werner Lindemann on how AI is rewriting the infosec rulebook 0 0 TechCentral full 38:22 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1663406 https://iono.fm/e/1663406 Marsh, whose 30-year career includes directing the Hollywood submarine thriller Hunter Killer starring Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman, the Spud films and iNumber Number, is the latest guest on the TechCentral Show.
The economics, he tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, are extraordinary: a single complex scene in a traditional production requires crews, equipment, locations and days of scheduling, while AI tools collapse much of that overhead into work that can be done at a desk.
But Marsh is clear that the creative work has not disappeared. He still directs shot by shot, much as he would on a conventional set, and uses a patchwork of different AI tools – no single product yet does everything. He has found that simpler prompts produce better results, saying over-prescription tends to degrade output quality.
Marsh acknowledges the disruption this implies for camera operators, lighting crews, set designers and extras. But he argues that AI filmmaking could prove liberating for smaller filmmaking markets like South Africa, where the budgets to make ambitious local movies have dwindled.
He has co-founded Dragon Studios AI with Ronnie Apteker and Stephen Cholerton, and is developing what he believes will be among the first AI-generated feature films. The tools are not quite there yet for a full 90-minute production, he says, but the gap is closing fast.
Marsh also weighs in on where the so-called “uncanny valley” still trips up generative video, the future of the acting profession and what AI filmmaking could look like by 2029. TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:21:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Donovan Marsh on AI and the future of filmmaking 0 0 TechCentral full 52:30 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1663405 https://iono.fm/e/1663405 Marsh, whose 30-year career includes directing the Hollywood submarine thriller Hunter Killer starring Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman, the Spud films and iNumber Number, is the latest guest on the TechCentral Show.
The economics, he tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, are extraordinary: a single complex scene in a traditional production requires crews, equipment, locations and days of scheduling, while AI tools collapse much of that overhead into work that can be done at a desk.
But Marsh is clear that the creative work has not disappeared. He still directs shot by shot, much as he would on a conventional set, and uses a patchwork of different AI tools – no single product yet does everything. He has found that simpler prompts produce better results, saying over-prescription tends to degrade output quality.
Marsh acknowledges the disruption this implies for camera operators, lighting crews, set designers and extras. But he argues that AI filmmaking could prove liberating for smaller filmmaking markets like South Africa, where the budgets to make ambitious local movies have dwindled.
He has co-founded Dragon Studios AI with Ronnie Apteker and Stephen Cholerton, and is developing what he believes will be among the first AI-generated feature films. The tools are not quite there yet for a full 90-minute production, he says, but the gap is closing fast.
Marsh also weighs in on where the so-called “uncanny valley” still trips up generative video, the future of the acting profession and what AI filmmaking could look like by 2029. ]]> Technology Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:20:00 +0200 0 0 Donovan Marsh on AI and the future of filmmaking 0 0 TechCentral full 52:30 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1663099 https://iono.fm/e/1663099 In this episode of TCS+, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod is joined in-studio by two members of the recently established Vodacom Business advisory board: Sannesh Beharie, managing executive of SME and mobile products at Vodacom Business, and Andrew Fulton, co-founder of data analytics firm Eighty20, a Vodacom Business partner.
Vodacom Business set up its advisory board last year to bridge the gap between enterprise-grade technology and the small businesses that need it most, bringing together tech leaders and external specialists to help companies – as well as SMEs – navigate digital transformation.
In the conversation, McLeod, Beharie and Fulton dig into what’s actually stopping small businesses from going digital, whether bundled connectivity and cloud offerings are genuinely good for SMEs or just a polite way of locking them in, and where AI fits into the picture for a 20-person business in South Africa.
They also tackle how Vodacom Business positions itself against the likes of AWS, Google and Microsoft in the SME market, where a small business owner should spend their first R10 000 a month on tech, and the most common mistakes SMEs make when they do invest in technology.
Don't miss the discussion on what a genuinely SME-first solution looks like – and whether the tech industry is guilty of designing for corporates and simply shrinking solutions down for smaller businesses.
* TCS+ episodes are sponsored by the party concerned TechCentral]]> Technology Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:40:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Vodacom Business moves to crack the SME tech gap 0 0 TechCentral full 34:47 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1663098 https://iono.fm/e/1663098 In this episode of TCS+, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod is joined in-studio by two members of the recently established Vodacom Business advisory board: Sannesh Beharie, managing executive of SME and mobile products at Vodacom Business, and Andrew Fulton, co-founder of data analytics firm Eighty20, a Vodacom Business partner.
Vodacom Business set up its advisory board last year to bridge the gap between enterprise-grade technology and the small businesses that need it most, bringing together tech leaders and external specialists to help companies – as well as SMEs – navigate digital transformation.
In the conversation, McLeod, Beharie and Fulton dig into what’s actually stopping small businesses from going digital, whether bundled connectivity and cloud offerings are genuinely good for SMEs or just a polite way of locking them in, and where AI fits into the picture for a 20-person business in South Africa.
They also tackle how Vodacom Business positions itself against the likes of AWS, Google and Microsoft in the SME market, where a small business owner should spend their first R10 000 a month on tech, and the most common mistakes SMEs make when they do invest in technology.
Don't miss the discussion on what a genuinely SME-first solution looks like – and whether the tech industry is guilty of designing for corporates and simply shrinking solutions down for smaller businesses.
* TCS+ episodes are sponsored by the party concerned ]]> Technology Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:38:00 +0200 0 0 Vodacom Business moves to crack the SME tech gap 0 0 TechCentral full 34:47 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1662032 https://iono.fm/e/1662032 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod talks to Divyesh Joshi, chief commercial officer at MTN South Africa, about the thinking behind the launch and what it signals about the direction of the local telecommunications market.
Pi’s pricing is aggressive: R79/month for 500 voice minutes and R199/month for 20GB of mobile data, for example, alongside home fixed-wireless broadband plans.
McLeod asks whether Pi is essentially MTN’s fightback against Telkom, which has been quietly gaining prepaid market share with competitive data pricing – and whether the launch is also a response to mobile virtual network operators like Melon Mobile.
The conversation explores what Pi means for MTN’s margins, particularly on voice, and whether the aggressive pricing on calls is an admission that voice has become a commodity in a market where many consumers have shifted to WhatsApp for calls.
McLeod also asks whether Pi represents MTN’s attempt to get ahead of a structural shift in how people consume telecoms services – drawing a parallel with MultiChoice’s failure to adapt quickly enough to changing market demands in the video entertainment space.
A key question is what happens to MTN’s existing SuperFlex product, which targets a similar customer base. Is Pi going to cannibalise MTN’s own subscribers?
Finally, McLeod and Joshi discuss MTN’s new eSim-based roaming deals, which offer data at R12/GB in markets like China and France – though curiously, roaming in eSwatini, where MTN has a subsidiary, costs R85/GB.
Don’t miss the conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 01 Apr 2026 06:47:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | MTN’s Divyesh Joshi on the strategy behind Pi 0 0 TechCentral full 21:46 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1662031 https://iono.fm/e/1662031 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod talks to Divyesh Joshi, chief commercial officer at MTN South Africa, about the thinking behind the launch and what it signals about the direction of the local telecommunications market.
Pi’s pricing is aggressive: R79/month for 500 voice minutes and R199/month for 20GB of mobile data, for example, alongside home fixed-wireless broadband plans.
McLeod asks whether Pi is essentially MTN’s fightback against Telkom, which has been quietly gaining prepaid market share with competitive data pricing – and whether the launch is also a response to mobile virtual network operators like Melon Mobile.
The conversation explores what Pi means for MTN’s margins, particularly on voice, and whether the aggressive pricing on calls is an admission that voice has become a commodity in a market where many consumers have shifted to WhatsApp for calls.
McLeod also asks whether Pi represents MTN’s attempt to get ahead of a structural shift in how people consume telecoms services – drawing a parallel with MultiChoice’s failure to adapt quickly enough to changing market demands in the video entertainment space.
A key question is what happens to MTN’s existing SuperFlex product, which targets a similar customer base. Is Pi going to cannibalise MTN’s own subscribers?
Finally, McLeod and Joshi discuss MTN’s new eSim-based roaming deals, which offer data at R12/GB in markets like China and France – though curiously, roaming in eSwatini, where MTN has a subsidiary, costs R85/GB.
Don’t miss the conversation! ]]> Technology Wed, 01 Apr 2026 06:46:00 +0200 0 0 MTN’s Divyesh Joshi on the strategy behind Pi 0 0 TechCentral full 21:46 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1660796 https://iono.fm/e/1660796 With some 5 500 jobs on the line, the big question is: is the Post Office worth saving? Rooplal spoke to TechCentral’s Nathi Ndlovu and was asked that question.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Rooplal talks about:
• The case for the bailout: The business rescue practitioners have already received R2.4-billion from government, while bailouts for the Post Office over the past decade amount to nearly R10-billion. Rooplal attempts to answer why this latest funding request is worth it.
• The current state of the Post Office: Rooplal outlines what the R2.4-billion tranche was used for and what the R3.8-billion request would do, if provided. He also details what the future state of the entity might look like and how, without much in terms of income, salaries are currently being paid.
• The need for a state-owned postal service: Even if national treasury were to agree to save the Post Office, does it have a place in a modern digital economy?
• External funding and asset sales: If the business case for the Post Office’s revival is so strong, why have the businesses rescue practitioners not sold or rationalised assets or gone to the open market for funding?
• Social grants and Post Bank: Rooplal explains what would happen to the many grant recipients processed via the Post Office should it not survive business rescue.
• Private sector partnerships: The department of communications & digital technologies in November issued a request for information seeking private sector partnership proposals. Rooplal explains the “chicken and egg” problem at the core those discussions.
• No more options: Chapter 6 of the Companies Act compels business rescue practitioners to file for liquidation if they see “no reasonable prospect” of rescue. Rooplal explains why he and his associate, Damons, are close to pulling the trigger.
Don’t miss the discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:52:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Anoosh Rooplal on the Post Office’s last stand 0 0 TechCentral full 27:32 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1660795 https://iono.fm/e/1660795 With some 5 500 jobs on the line, the big question is: is the Post Office worth saving? Rooplal spoke to TechCentral’s Nathi Ndlovu and was asked that question.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Rooplal talks about:
• The case for the bailout: The business rescue practitioners have already received R2.4-billion from government, while bailouts for the Post Office over the past decade amount to nearly R10-billion. Rooplal attempts to answer why this latest funding request is worth it.
• The current state of the Post Office: Rooplal outlines what the R2.4-billion tranche was used for and what the R3.8-billion request would do, if provided. He also details what the future state of the entity might look like and how, without much in terms of income, salaries are currently being paid.
• The need for a state-owned postal service: Even if national treasury were to agree to save the Post Office, does it have a place in a modern digital economy?
• External funding and asset sales: If the business case for the Post Office’s revival is so strong, why have the businesses rescue practitioners not sold or rationalised assets or gone to the open market for funding?
• Social grants and Post Bank: Rooplal explains what would happen to the many grant recipients processed via the Post Office should it not survive business rescue.
• Private sector partnerships: The department of communications & digital technologies in November issued a request for information seeking private sector partnership proposals. Rooplal explains the “chicken and egg” problem at the core those discussions.
• No more options: Chapter 6 of the Companies Act compels business rescue practitioners to file for liquidation if they see “no reasonable prospect” of rescue. Rooplal explains why he and his associate, Damons, are close to pulling the trigger.
Don’t miss the discussion! ]]> Technology Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:50:00 +0200 0 0 Anoosh Rooplal on the Post Office’s last stand 0 0 TechCentral full 27:32 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1659091 https://iono.fm/e/1659091 Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Fatti said AI and cloud computing are already easing the administrative burden on doctors and medical professionals, allowing them to spend more time with patients rather than on paperwork and back-office tasks.
Fatti joined Healthbridge as CTO in February 2025, bringing experience from senior technology leadership roles at the South African Revenue Service, where he served as chief technology and innovation officer, as well as at Discovery, where he was chief digital officer, and data business Lightstone, where he was CIO.
Healthbridge, founded in 1999, positions itself as a technology partner that helps medical professionals run their practices so they can focus on patient care. The company’s offerings have evolved significantly since its early days – from a pre-cloud, pre-AI era to a modern cloud-based software-as-a-service platform built in partnership with Google Cloud.
In the interview, Fatti discusses how the company has structured its innovation efforts. He also addresses which parts of clinical workflows are ready for AI automation today and which must remain human-led, and how far the industry is from AI playing a decisive role in diagnosis.
On the shortage of medical professionals in South Africa, particularly in certain specialities, Fatti explores how AI and other modern tools can make doctors more productive – and whether practitioners are receptive to adopting them.
He also shares his views on how policymakers should be thinking about AI in healthcare, the new skills emerging inside his teams and his approach to disrupting Healthbridge’s own business model before a competitor does. TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 23 Mar 2026 13:14:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | Healthbridge CTO Anton Fatti on the future of digital health 0 0 TechCentral full 45:46 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1659090 https://iono.fm/e/1659090 Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Fatti said AI and cloud computing are already easing the administrative burden on doctors and medical professionals, allowing them to spend more time with patients rather than on paperwork and back-office tasks.
Fatti joined Healthbridge as CTO in February 2025, bringing experience from senior technology leadership roles at the South African Revenue Service, where he served as chief technology and innovation officer, as well as at Discovery, where he was chief digital officer, and data business Lightstone, where he was CIO.
Healthbridge, founded in 1999, positions itself as a technology partner that helps medical professionals run their practices so they can focus on patient care. The company’s offerings have evolved significantly since its early days – from a pre-cloud, pre-AI era to a modern cloud-based software-as-a-service platform built in partnership with Google Cloud.
In the interview, Fatti discusses how the company has structured its innovation efforts. He also addresses which parts of clinical workflows are ready for AI automation today and which must remain human-led, and how far the industry is from AI playing a decisive role in diagnosis.
On the shortage of medical professionals in South Africa, particularly in certain specialities, Fatti explores how AI and other modern tools can make doctors more productive – and whether practitioners are receptive to adopting them.
He also shares his views on how policymakers should be thinking about AI in healthcare, the new skills emerging inside his teams and his approach to disrupting Healthbridge’s own business model before a competitor does. TechCentral]]> Management Mon, 23 Mar 2026 13:13:00 +0200 0 0 Healthbridge CTO Anton Fatti on the future of digital health 0 0 TechCentral full 45:46 Meet the CIO https://iono.fm/e/1657872 https://iono.fm/e/1657872 In many organisations, the gap between security activity and real risk reduction remains stubbornly wide, even as threats become faster, more adaptive and harder to spot.
In this episode of TCS+, Clare Loveridge and Jason Oehley from Arctic Wolf unpack what the 2026 Arctic Wolf Threat Report reveals about how the risk landscape is shifting, both globally and in South Africa.
They discuss whether organisations are genuinely becoming more proactive, how AI is changing the game for attackers and defenders alike, and why familiar blockers continue to undermine even well-funded security programmes.
The conversation also explores what it means to "end cyber risk" in practical terms, why continuous improvement matters more than one-off projects, and how organisations should think about residual risk — the portion that remains even after controls are in place.
The episode closes with a look at Arctic Wolf's cybersecurity warranty in South Africa and what role warranties can play in risk management when prevention alone is not enough. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:20:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Arctic Wolf unpacks the evolving threat landscape for SA businesses 0 0 TechCentral full 29:32 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1657871 https://iono.fm/e/1657871 In many organisations, the gap between security activity and real risk reduction remains stubbornly wide, even as threats become faster, more adaptive and harder to spot.
In this episode of TCS+, Clare Loveridge and Jason Oehley from Arctic Wolf unpack what the 2026 Arctic Wolf Threat Report reveals about how the risk landscape is shifting, both globally and in South Africa.
They discuss whether organisations are genuinely becoming more proactive, how AI is changing the game for attackers and defenders alike, and why familiar blockers continue to undermine even well-funded security programmes.
The conversation also explores what it means to "end cyber risk" in practical terms, why continuous improvement matters more than one-off projects, and how organisations should think about residual risk — the portion that remains even after controls are in place.
The episode closes with a look at Arctic Wolf's cybersecurity warranty in South Africa and what role warranties can play in risk management when prevention alone is not enough. ]]> Technology Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:19:00 +0200 0 0 Arctic Wolf unpacks the evolving threat landscape for SA businesses 0 0 TechCentral full 29:32 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1655266 https://iono.fm/e/1655266 Vox recently launched Kiwi, a wireless connectivity solution promising a fibre-like experience with speeds of up to 200Mbit/s. In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, Theo van Zyl, head of wireless at Vox, provides more details about the Kiwi service and how it works.
Van Zyl delves into:
* The rationale behind building a wireless service that offer a fibre-like experience;
* Why customers should choose Kiwi over a 4G or 5G fixed-wireless solution;
* The technical innovations Vox took advantage of to get the speed and reliability Kiwi offers its customers;
* How Kiwi behaves in disruptive scenarios such as thunderstorms;
* The various tiers customers can subscribe to and the speeds they offer;
* The kind of spectrum Kiwi uses and how it does so efficiently;
* The installation process and the hardware involved; and
* Why the name Kiwi was chosen and its relevance to wireless technology.
Don’t miss in an interesting discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:53:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Vox Kiwi: a wireless solution promising a fibre-like experience 0 0 TechCentral full 15:54 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1655265 https://iono.fm/e/1655265 Vox recently launched Kiwi, a wireless connectivity solution promising a fibre-like experience with speeds of up to 200Mbit/s. In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, Theo van Zyl, head of wireless at Vox, provides more details about the Kiwi service and how it works.
Van Zyl delves into:
* The rationale behind building a wireless service that offer a fibre-like experience;
* Why customers should choose Kiwi over a 4G or 5G fixed-wireless solution;
* The technical innovations Vox took advantage of to get the speed and reliability Kiwi offers its customers;
* How Kiwi behaves in disruptive scenarios such as thunderstorms;
* The various tiers customers can subscribe to and the speeds they offer;
* The kind of spectrum Kiwi uses and how it does so efficiently;
* The installation process and the hardware involved; and
* Why the name Kiwi was chosen and its relevance to wireless technology.
Don’t miss in an interesting discussion! ]]> Technology Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:52:00 +0200 0 0 Vox Kiwi: a wireless solution promising a fibre-like experience 0 0 TechCentral full 15:54 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1655243 https://iono.fm/e/1655243 What unfolds is a rich conversation that challenges long-held assumptions about Africa's role in the global AI ecosystem — and reframes governance, ethics and constraint not as obstacles but as strategic advantages.
The discussion explores how deeply regulated environments sharpen one's appreciation for integrity, accountability and human impact — principles that are now indispensable in the design of trustworthy AI systems. This sets the tone for a broader conversation on why governance-by-design, representative data and bias mitigation are not "nice-to-haves" but foundational to sustainable AI adoption, particularly for public-facing systems operating in diverse and unequal societies.
A central theme is "flipping the narrative" — moving away from the idea that the Global South must simply catch up, and instead recognising its unique opportunity to shape AI differently. Rosén offers compelling insights into Africa's position as the youngest continent, cautioning that demographic advantage alone does not automatically translate into leadership. The discussion interrogates what must change — across policy, education, data strategy and governance — for Africa's youth dividend to become real AI leadership, and why the window to do so is open but narrow.
Listeners are taken deeper into Africa's distinct AI opportunity set: smaller, more context-specific language models; mobile-first innovation; and the potential to build systems that are locally relevant, linguistically inclusive and ethically grounded from inception. Rosén underscores that when AI systems — especially those interfacing directly with the public — are not sufficiently representative of the people and environments they serve, trust erodes quickly. Integrity, reliability and contextual relevance are therefore not abstract principles but practical necessities for AI systems that aim to endure and scale responsibly.
The episode closes by exploring practical use cases and forward-looking responsibilities, asking who must do what next — from policymakers and universities to business leaders and technologists — if Africa is to seize this moment. The conversation leaves listeners with a powerful message: the future of AI in the Global South will not be determined by scale alone but by the choices made now around governance, representation and trust.
Don't miss it! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:10:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Flipping the narrative on AI in the Global South 0 0 TechCentral full 39:14 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1655242 https://iono.fm/e/1655242 What unfolds is a rich conversation that challenges long-held assumptions about Africa's role in the global AI ecosystem — and reframes governance, ethics and constraint not as obstacles but as strategic advantages.
The discussion explores how deeply regulated environments sharpen one's appreciation for integrity, accountability and human impact — principles that are now indispensable in the design of trustworthy AI systems. This sets the tone for a broader conversation on why governance-by-design, representative data and bias mitigation are not "nice-to-haves" but foundational to sustainable AI adoption, particularly for public-facing systems operating in diverse and unequal societies.
A central theme is "flipping the narrative" — moving away from the idea that the Global South must simply catch up, and instead recognising its unique opportunity to shape AI differently. Rosén offers compelling insights into Africa's position as the youngest continent, cautioning that demographic advantage alone does not automatically translate into leadership. The discussion interrogates what must change — across policy, education, data strategy and governance — for Africa's youth dividend to become real AI leadership, and why the window to do so is open but narrow.
Listeners are taken deeper into Africa's distinct AI opportunity set: smaller, more context-specific language models; mobile-first innovation; and the potential to build systems that are locally relevant, linguistically inclusive and ethically grounded from inception. Rosén underscores that when AI systems — especially those interfacing directly with the public — are not sufficiently representative of the people and environments they serve, trust erodes quickly. Integrity, reliability and contextual relevance are therefore not abstract principles but practical necessities for AI systems that aim to endure and scale responsibly.
The episode closes by exploring practical use cases and forward-looking responsibilities, asking who must do what next — from policymakers and universities to business leaders and technologists — if Africa is to seize this moment. The conversation leaves listeners with a powerful message: the future of AI in the Global South will not be determined by scale alone but by the choices made now around governance, representation and trust.
Don't miss it! ]]> Technology Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:09:00 +0200 0 0 Flipping the narrative on AI in the Global South 0 0 TechCentral full 39:14 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1652688 https://iono.fm/e/1652688 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Antony Makins, acting CEO at TForge and chair of the special group on AI and robotics at the Institute of IT Professionals South Africa, unpacks the skills revolution unfolding alongside the AI one.
Makins delves into the patterns emerging across organisations and the broader labour market as AI adoption accelerates.
He also explores the mindset shift it’s imposing on the workforce, and which roles are being hit hardest by AI-driven changes to how we work.
He delves into the opportunities that exist despite the very real threat AI poses to jobs – and what government can do to create an enabling environment for workers to adapt to a labour market increasingly shaped by AI, machine learning and data analysis.
Don't miss it the conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:43:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Sink or swim? Antony Makins on how AI is rewriting the rules of work 0 0 TechCentral full 40:08 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1652687 https://iono.fm/e/1652687 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Antony Makins, acting CEO at TForge and chair of the special group on AI and robotics at the Institute of IT Professionals South Africa, unpacks the skills revolution unfolding alongside the AI one.
Makins delves into the patterns emerging across organisations and the broader labour market as AI adoption accelerates.
He also explores the mindset shift it’s imposing on the workforce, and which roles are being hit hardest by AI-driven changes to how we work.
He delves into the opportunities that exist despite the very real threat AI poses to jobs – and what government can do to create an enabling environment for workers to adapt to a labour market increasingly shaped by AI, machine learning and data analysis.
Don't miss it the conversation! ]]> Technology Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:38:00 +0200 0 0 Sink or swim? Antony Makins on how AI is rewriting the rules of work 0 0 TechCentral full 40:08 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1652232 https://iono.fm/e/1652232 In this episode of TechCentral's TCS+, Simo Kalajdzic, senior operations manager at Bolt South Africa, discusses findings from the report and how Bolt has used them to inform decision-making regarding its approach to safety on its platform.
Kalajdzic delves into:
* The rationale behind Bolt's commission of the report;
* Why market research firm Ipsos was chosen to conduct the research;
* Key findings from the report and the products Bolt has developed using those insights;
* The key drivers fuelling e-hailing adoption in South Africa and where safety ranks compared to other factors like reliability and cost;
* Scenarios that lead to South African's choosing e-hailing over other transport types;
* How e-hailing compares to other modes of transport in terms of safety perception;
* What survey respondents said about e-hailing's impact on drunk driving in their respective cities;
* Those features of e-hailing apps that make users feel safer compared to other types of transportation; and
* What users can do to maximise their safety levels when using the platform. ]]> Technology Wed, 04 Mar 2026 12:37:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Bolt ups the ante on platform safety 0 0 TechCentral full 13:30 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1652230 https://iono.fm/e/1652230 In this episode of TechCentral's TCS+, Simo Kalajdzic, senior operations manager at Bolt South Africa, discusses findings from the report and how Bolt has used them to inform decision-making regarding its approach to safety on its platform.
Kalajdzic delves into:
* The rationale behind Bolt's commission of the report;
* Why market research firm Ipsos was chosen to conduct the research;
* Key findings from the report and the products Bolt has developed using those insights;
* The key drivers fuelling e-hailing adoption in South Africa and where safety ranks compared to other factors like reliability and cost;
* Scenarios that lead to South African's choosing e-hailing over other transport types;
* How e-hailing compares to other modes of transport in terms of safety perception;
* What survey respondents said about e-hailing's impact on drunk driving in their respective cities;
* Those features of e-hailing apps that make users feel safer compared to other types of transportation; and
* What users can do to maximise their safety levels when using the platform. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 04 Mar 2026 12:26:00 +0200 0 0 Bolt ups the ante on platform safety 0 0 TechCentral full 13:30 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1644418 https://iono.fm/e/1644418 The episode opens with the latest EV news, including fresh import duty statistics from Donald MacKay of XA Global Trade Advisors and a closer look at BAIC’s claims of local manufacturing – with the hosts questioning just how “made in South Africa” its vehicles really are, given a reported seven-to-one difference factor in jobs created.
Also in the news segment: Zero Carbon Charge's latest fundraising efforts, the launch of Uber Go Electric – a notably affordable option powered by Valternative – and the latest developments in autonomous driving technology.
The show features two review segments this week. First up is the Riddara RD6 electric bakkie, followed by a hands-on driving experience with one of Valternative’s electric Uber vehicles – Duncan McLeod plays Uber driver and gives a lift to a grumpy Prince William. The Valternative segment is complemented by an interview with the company’s CEO, Mahomed Jeewa, who discusses the firm’s ambitions in the electric ride-hailing space.
A major talking point is the announcement of the 2026 Car of the Year semi-finalists. The hosts run through the full list, highlighting the growing presence of Chinese brands among the contenders – a notable shift in a competition won last year by the BMW X3. They close by pondering who might take the 2026 Car of the Year crown.
The episode wraps up with the popular Hot or Not segment, in which the hosts give their verdicts on the Riddara, Uber Go Electric and the Volvo EX60, which has been confirmed for a South African launch later this year. ]]> Technology Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:44:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E4: ‘We drive an electric Uber’ 0 0 TechCentral full 1:21:49 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1644416 https://iono.fm/e/1644416 The episode opens with the latest EV news, including fresh import duty statistics from Donald McKay of XA Global Trade Advisors and a closer look at BAIC’s claims of local manufacturing – with the hosts questioning just how “made in South Africa” its vehicles really are, given a reported seven-to-one difference factor in jobs created.
Also in the news segment: Zero Carbon Charge's latest fundraising efforts, the launch of Uber Go Electric – a notably affordable option powered by Valternative – and the latest developments in autonomous driving technology.
The show features two review segments this week. First up is the Riddara RD6 electric bakkie, followed by a hands-on driving experience with one of Valternative’s electric Uber vehicles – Duncan McLeod plays Uber driver and gives a lift to a grumpy Prince William. The Valternative segment is complemented by an interview with the company’s CEO, Mahomed Jeewa, who discusses the firm’s ambitions in the electric ride-hailing space.
A major talking point is the announcement of the 2026 Car of the Year semi-finalists. The hosts run through the full list, highlighting the growing presence of Chinese brands among the contenders – a notable shift in a competition won last year by the BMW X3. They close by pondering who might take the 2026 Car of the Year crown.
The episode wraps up with the popular Hot or Not segment, in which the hosts give their verdicts on the Riddara, Uber Go Electric and the Volvo EX60, which has been confirmed for a South African launch later this year. ]]> Automotive Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:43:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E4: ‘We drive an electric Uber’ 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 1:21:49 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1641655 https://iono.fm/e/1641655 Meet the CIO is brought to you by NTT DATA, where global experience meets local impact.
Tsoaeli has spent his entire career in financial services technology, starting out as an application developer at Rand Merchant Bank before holding senior technology roles at Standard Bank, Investec, Nedbank, FirstRand and Sanlam. He became CIO of the JSE three years ago, bringing deep experience in large-scale, mission-critical systems to one of the most tightly regulated technology environments in the country.
In the conversation, Tsoaeli reflects on his early exposure to computing and how a formal grounding in computer science shaped his career path. While he is clearly a technologist at heart, he explains how his role has evolved beyond pure IT delivery to focus on strategy, resilience, regulatory compliance and enabling market growth.
A major theme of the discussion is the JSE’s technology stack and how it has changed over time. Tsoaeli explains how the exchange now works closely with Amazon Web Services, moving away from a purely on-premises model to leverage cloud infrastructure for scalability, resilience and performance. He also addresses the question many market participants ask: can the cloud really be trusted with mission-critical exchange workloads, especially in a world where outages at global providers can have far-reaching consequences?
Latency and real-time trading are central concerns for any exchange, and Tsoaeli provides insight into how the JSE’s infrastructure supports the full trading lifecycle – from pre-market activity through live trading to post-trade clearing and settlement. He also touches on the exchange’s networking architecture and how it is designed to deliver predictable, low-latency performance for brokers and market participants.
The episode also explores the JSE’s strategic technology partnership with Nasdaq. Tsoaeli explains how this relationship operates at a technology level and what it has delivered so far, including support for market modernisation and international interoperability. Closely linked to this is the modernisation of the JSE’s Broker Dealer Accounting system, a project Tsoaeli describes as critical to improving efficiency, resilience and future-readiness.
Given the highly regulated nature of financial markets, security and compliance are never far from the conversation. Tsoaeli outlines how the JSE balances innovation with stringent regulatory requirements, and what this means for data protection, operational risk and trust in the market.
Looking ahead, the discussion touches on cross-border capital flows, dual listings and the potential role of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning in trading and market operations – along with the risks that come with them.
Finally, Tsoaeli shares his perspective on what success looks like for the JSE’s technology journey over the next three to five years, how he sees the role of the CIO evolving, and – in a lighter moment – his favourite productivity hack. TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 02 Feb 2026 15:24:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | Inside the JSE’s tech engine with CIO Tebalo Tsoaeli 0 0 TechCentral full 47:08 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1641654 https://iono.fm/e/1641654 Meet the CIO is brought to you by NTT DATA, where global experience meets local impact.
Tsoaeli has spent his entire career in financial services technology, starting out as an application developer at Rand Merchant Bank before holding senior technology roles at Standard Bank, Investec, Nedbank, FirstRand and Sanlam. He became CIO of the JSE three years ago, bringing deep experience in large-scale, mission-critical systems to one of the most tightly regulated technology environments in the country.
In the conversation, Tsoaeli reflects on his early exposure to computing and how a formal grounding in computer science shaped his career path. While he is clearly a technologist at heart, he explains how his role has evolved beyond pure IT delivery to focus on strategy, resilience, regulatory compliance and enabling market growth.
A major theme of the discussion is the JSE’s technology stack and how it has changed over time. Tsoaeli explains how the exchange now works closely with Amazon Web Services, moving away from a purely on-premises model to leverage cloud infrastructure for scalability, resilience and performance. He also addresses the question many market participants ask: can the cloud really be trusted with mission-critical exchange workloads, especially in a world where outages at global providers can have far-reaching consequences?
Latency and real-time trading are central concerns for any exchange, and Tsoaeli provides insight into how the JSE’s infrastructure supports the full trading lifecycle – from pre-market activity through live trading to post-trade clearing and settlement. He also touches on the exchange’s networking architecture and how it is designed to deliver predictable, low-latency performance for brokers and market participants.
The episode also explores the JSE’s strategic technology partnership with Nasdaq. Tsoaeli explains how this relationship operates at a technology level and what it has delivered so far, including support for market modernisation and international interoperability. Closely linked to this is the modernisation of the JSE’s Broker Dealer Accounting system, a project Tsoaeli describes as critical to improving efficiency, resilience and future-readiness.
Given the highly regulated nature of financial markets, security and compliance are never far from the conversation. Tsoaeli outlines how the JSE balances innovation with stringent regulatory requirements, and what this means for data protection, operational risk and trust in the market.
Looking ahead, the discussion touches on cross-border capital flows, dual listings and the potential role of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning in trading and market operations – along with the risks that come with them.
Finally, Tsoaeli shares his perspective on what success looks like for the JSE’s technology journey over the next three to five years, how he sees the role of the CIO evolving, and – in a lighter moment – his favourite productivity hack. TechCentral]]> Management Mon, 02 Feb 2026 15:22:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | Inside the JSE’s tech engine with CIO Tebalo Tsoaeli 0 0 TechCentral full 47:08 Meet the CIO https://iono.fm/e/1640931 https://iono.fm/e/1640931 Consnet is an IT solutions firm that leveraged the Amazon Web Services distribution model to accelerate its own journey into the cloud, enabling the company to do the same for its customers.
In this episode of TCS+, Dion Kalicharan, MD at Consnet, and Xhenia Rhode, AWS partner development manager at Cloud On Demand, speak about the benefits of leveraging the support structures in the AWS partner network.
Rhode and Kalicharan delve into:
• What the AWS distribution model is and how it benefits partners in the ecosystem;
• Consnet’s 21-year history, the services it provides and how its journey into the cloud began;
• How Consnet being supported by Cloud On Demand gave it the know-how to support its own customers on their cloud adoption journeys;
• The technical and training support that helped guide Consnet to upskill its teams and gain cloud expertise;
• How Cloud On Demand “marked Consnet’s homework” by double-checking the quality and efficiency of its cloud deployments; and
• How Cloud on Demand strategically meets its partners where their needs are.
Don’t miss this informative conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:34:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Cloud On Demand and Consnet: inside a real-world AWS partner success story 0 0 TechCentral full 25:21 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1640930 https://iono.fm/e/1640930 Consnet is an IT solutions firm that leveraged the Amazon Web Services distribution model to accelerate its own journey into the cloud, enabling the company to do the same for its customers.
In this episode of TCS+, Dion Kalicharan, MD at Consnet, and Xhenia Rhode, AWS partner development manager at Cloud On Demand, speak about the benefits of leveraging the support structures in the AWS partner network.
Rhode and Kalicharan delve into:
• What the AWS distribution model is and how it benefits partners in the ecosystem;
• Consnet’s 21-year history, the services it provides and how its journey into the cloud began;
• How Consnet being supported by Cloud On Demand gave it the know-how to support its own customers on their cloud adoption journeys;
• The technical and training support that helped guide Consnet to upskill its teams and gain cloud expertise;
• How Cloud On Demand “marked Consnet’s homework” by double-checking the quality and efficiency of its cloud deployments; and
• How Cloud on Demand strategically meets its partners where their needs are.
Don’t miss this informative conversation! ]]> Technology Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:33:00 +0200 0 0 Cloud On Demand and Consnet: inside a real-world AWS partner success story 0 0 TechCentral full 25:21 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1640878 https://iono.fm/e/1640878 Duncan McLeod and co-host William Kelly kick off by drooling over a wild new Toyota performance machine they say is real, street legal and due in 2027. It’s a 4l hybrid V8, rear-wheel drive “hypercar” with supercar proportions and serious numbers: 478kW and a quoted top speed of 320km/h or more. It’s the sort of car that feels entirely out of character for Toyota – and that’s exactly why they can’t stop talking about it.
From there, the conversation swings hard in the other direction: the all-electric Porsche Cayenne, which is shaping up as a huge statement from Stuttgart. The hosts discuss its performance claims – including a 0-100km/h sprint in the mid-2s range – and a range figure north of 600km.
They also debate the realities of EV depreciation and whether buyer anxiety around battery longevity is starting to fade as real-world data shows high-mileage EVs retaining strong battery health.
The episode then turns to Ford CEO Jim Farley’s candid admission that big, expensive EV trucks haven’t delivered as hoped – and why legacy car makers may need to refocus on smaller, more affordable models. The discussion touches on Ford’s partnership with Renault on EVs, and what that could mean for markets like South Africa.
But the meatiest local segment is BYD’s push into South Africa with an aggressive product and charging strategy. William and Duncan unpack their impressions of the BYD Sealion 5 plug-in hybrid – positioned as a direct rival to the Toyota Corolla Cross – and criticise the lack of technical detail shared at its launch. They also discuss BYD’s planned roll-out of a major charging network, including megawatt-scale sites, and what that could mean for shrinking range anxiety.
The episode closes with the show’s “Hot or Not” segment – and one clear takeaway: 2026 is shaping up as a pivotal year for electrification, even as petrolhead fantasies refuse to die.
Watch S1E3 of Watts & Wheels now – and don’t forget to subscribe. TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:51:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E3: ‘BYD’s Corolla Cross challenger’ 0 0 TechCentral full 36:11 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1640876 https://iono.fm/e/1640876 Duncan McLeod and co-host William Kelly kick off by drooling over a wild new Toyota performance machine they say is real, street legal and due in 2027. It’s a 4l hybrid V8, rear-wheel drive “hypercar” with supercar proportions and serious numbers: 478kW and a quoted top speed of 320km/h or more. It’s the sort of car that feels entirely out of character for Toyota – and that’s exactly why they can’t stop talking about it.
From there, the conversation swings hard in the other direction: the all-electric Porsche Cayenne, which is shaping up as a huge statement from Stuttgart. The hosts discuss its performance claims – including a 0-100km/h sprint in the mid-2s range – and a range figure north of 600km.
They also debate the realities of EV depreciation and whether buyer anxiety around battery longevity is starting to fade as real-world data shows high-mileage EVs retaining strong battery health.
The episode then turns to Ford CEO Jim Farley’s candid admission that big, expensive EV trucks haven’t delivered as hoped – and why legacy car makers may need to refocus on smaller, more affordable models. The discussion touches on Ford’s partnership with Renault on EVs, and what that could mean for markets like South Africa.
But the meatiest local segment is BYD’s push into South Africa with an aggressive product and charging strategy. William and Duncan unpack their impressions of the BYD Sealion 5 plug-in hybrid – positioned as a direct rival to the Toyota Corolla Cross – and criticise the lack of technical detail shared at its launch. They also discuss BYD’s planned roll-out of a major charging network, including megawatt-scale sites, and what that could mean for shrinking range anxiety.
The episode closes with the show’s “Hot or Not” segment – and one clear takeaway: 2026 is shaping up as a pivotal year for electrification, even as petrolhead fantasies refuse to die.
Watch S1E3 of Watts & Wheels now – and don’t forget to subscribe. ]]> Automotive Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:49:00 +0200 0 0 S1E3: ‘BYD’s Corolla Cross challenger’ 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 36:11 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1638226 https://iono.fm/e/1638226 There is also an update on Stellantis’s manufacturing plans and what they could mean for South Africa’s position in global automotive supply chains.
The discussion turns to plug-in hybrids, which are emerging as a key battleground. The Omoda C9 PHEV and Haval H6 GT PHEV are discussed as examples of how Chinese brands are targeting buyers not yet ready to go fully electric.
Duncan and William chat about two new vehicles in South Africa: the Leapmotor C10 (and why William hates the term REEV) and the Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica (which William is prepared to give a kidney to own).
And then there’s the Toyota GR GT. Duncan explains why this supercar has him seriously questioning his principles – and why some petrol cars are still capable of making rational people do irrational things. TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:27:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E2: ‘China attacks, BMW digs in, Toyota’s sublime supercar’ 0 0 TechCentral full 38:10 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1638223 https://iono.fm/e/1638223 There is also an update on Stellantis’s manufacturing plans and what they could mean for South Africa’s position in global automotive supply chains.
The discussion turns to plug-in hybrids, which are emerging as a key battleground. The Omoda C9 PHEV and Haval H6 GT PHEV are discussed as examples of how Chinese brands are targeting buyers not yet ready to go fully electric.
Duncan and William chat about two new vehicles in South Africa: the Leapmotor C10 (and why William hates the term REEV) and the Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica (which William is prepared to give a kidney to own).
And then there’s the Toyota GR GT. Duncan explains why this supercar has him seriously questioning his principles – and why some petrol cars are still capable of making rational people do irrational things. ]]> Automotive Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:21:00 +0200 0 0 S1E2: ‘China attacks, BMW digs in, Toyota’s sublime supercar’ 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 38:10 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1636909 https://iono.fm/e/1636909 He tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the future of BMW’s Rosslyn manufacturing plant in Pretoria, which was established more than half a century ago, and the urgent need for new government policy to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa is future-fit and ready for the shift to electric mobility.
Van Binsbergen also discusses the rise of imported vehicles in the sales mix in South Africa – including the rapid expansion of Chinese brands. China is a market he knows well, having spent three years there with BMW.
In the interview, TechCentral Show viewers will also hear about:
• The state of the local automotive manufacturing industry;
• What South Africa needs to implement in policy reform to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa – and why this is urgent;
• How the country must adapt to the global shift to electric mobility;
• The role of BMW’s IT Hub in South Africa;
• BMW’s global EV strategy, and what that means for South African EV buyers; and
• BMW’s Neue Klasse vehicles, which run the company’s next-generation EV platform, and why they are significant to its future.
Don’t miss a fascinating discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:58:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | BMW CEO Peter van Binsbergen on the future of South Africa’s automotive industry 0 0 TechCentral full 30:00 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1636907 https://iono.fm/e/1636907 South Africa’s automotive industry is in a state of flux. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, BMW Group South Africa CEO Peter van Binsbergen unpacks the challenges – and opportunities – facing a sector under pressure.
He tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the future of BMW’s Rosslyn manufacturing plant in Pretoria, which was established more than half a century ago, and the urgent need for new government policy to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa is future-fit and ready for the shift to electric mobility.
Van Binsbergen also discusses the rise of imported vehicles in the sales mix in South Africa – including the rapid expansion of Chinese brands. China is a market he knows well, having spent three years there with BMW.
In the interview, TechCentral Show viewers will also hear about:
• The state of the local automotive manufacturing industry;
• What South Africa needs to implement in policy reform to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa – and why this is urgent;
• How the country must adapt to the global shift to electric mobility;
• The role of BMW’s IT Hub in South Africa;
• BMW’s global EV strategy, and what that means for South African EV buyers; and
• BMW’s Neue Klasse vehicles, which run the company’s next-generation EV platform, and why they are significant to its future.
Don’t miss a fascinating discussion! ]]> Technology Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:51:00 +0200 0 0 BMW CEO Peter van Binsbergen on the future of South Africa’s automotive industry 0 0 TechCentral full 30:00 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1636808 https://iono.fm/e/1636808 Once seen primarily as an IT problem, cybersecurity is now recognised as a material business risk with direct financial, operational and reputational consequences. But the discussion made clear that security, done well, can also signal organisational maturity to regulators, investors and partners – and increasingly, become a source of competitive advantage.
Collard likened strong security controls to having “good brakes on a fast car”. Without them, businesses cannot safely deploy emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence or scale digital platforms with confidence. Availability and resilience, she argued, are foundational: “Businesses are in business to stay in business.”
That foundation is under growing pressure. Zahela said South Africa’s threat landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by a criminal ecosystem that is itself adopting automation and AI. Phishing attacks have become far more convincing, while ransomware continues to disrupt cloud migrations, often exploiting misconfigured environments rushed into production.
Defenders, however, are also using AI. Vodacom Business has integrated AI-driven detection and response into its managed security services, reducing the time taken to detect and respond to threats from hours to minutes, or even seconds. Crucially, these systems are adaptive, learning continuously from global threat intelligence rather than relying on static rules.
Despite advances in automation, human behaviour remains central to security outcomes. Many breaches still involve simple mistakes. Collard argued that well-trained employees can act as an extension of the security function, providing judgment and context that AI cannot. The challenge is that organisations must now secure not only people, but also the AI tools and agents they use – all of which can themselves be manipulated.
This requires what Collard described as “digital mindfulness”: a security-aware culture led from the top. Executives must model good behaviour, while organisations adopt zero-trust principles that continuously verify identity and access rights across employees, partners and devices, enforcing least-privilege access by default.
To turn security into an enabler rather than a blocker, it must be embedded from the start. “Security by design” – integrating safeguards into systems, processes and digital initiatives upfront – avoids costly retrofits later and allows innovation to move faster with clearer risk boundaries.
The payoff can be tangible. A strong security posture can reduce cyber-insurance costs, improve business continuity and prevent expensive operational disruptions. More broadly, trust built through resilience and good governance can attract customers, partners and investors.
The key message for business leaders, the speakers agreed, is to stop treating security as reactive. The more powerful question is no longer, “How do we protect what we have?”, but rather, “How does security enable us to do what we couldn’t do before?”
Don’t miss this important conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:10:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Why cybersecurity is becoming a competitive advantage for SA businesses 0 0 TechCentral full 35:38 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1636806 https://iono.fm/e/1636806 Once seen primarily as an IT problem, cybersecurity is now recognised as a material business risk with direct financial, operational and reputational consequences. But the discussion made clear that security, done well, can also signal organisational maturity to regulators, investors and partners – and increasingly, become a source of competitive advantage.
Collard likened strong security controls to having “good brakes on a fast car”. Without them, businesses cannot safely deploy emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence or scale digital platforms with confidence. Availability and resilience, she argued, are foundational: “Businesses are in business to stay in business.”
That foundation is under growing pressure. Zahela said South Africa’s threat landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by a criminal ecosystem that is itself adopting automation and AI. Phishing attacks have become far more convincing, while ransomware continues to disrupt cloud migrations, often exploiting misconfigured environments rushed into production.
Defenders, however, are also using AI. Vodacom Business has integrated AI-driven detection and response into its managed security services, reducing the time taken to detect and respond to threats from hours to minutes, or even seconds. Crucially, these systems are adaptive, learning continuously from global threat intelligence rather than relying on static rules.
Despite advances in automation, human behaviour remains central to security outcomes. Many breaches still involve simple mistakes. Collard argued that well-trained employees can act as an extension of the security function, providing judgment and context that AI cannot. The challenge is that organisations must now secure not only people, but also the AI tools and agents they use – all of which can themselves be manipulated.
This requires what Collard described as “digital mindfulness”: a security-aware culture led from the top. Executives must model good behaviour, while organisations adopt zero-trust principles that continuously verify identity and access rights across employees, partners and devices, enforcing least-privilege access by default.
To turn security into an enabler rather than a blocker, it must be embedded from the start. “Security by design” – integrating safeguards into systems, processes and digital initiatives upfront – avoids costly retrofits later and allows innovation to move faster with clearer risk boundaries.
The payoff can be tangible. A strong security posture can reduce cyber-insurance costs, improve business continuity and prevent expensive operational disruptions. More broadly, trust built through resilience and good governance can attract customers, partners and investors.
The key message for business leaders, the speakers agreed, is to stop treating security as reactive. The more powerful question is no longer, “How do we protect what we have?”, but rather, “How does security enable us to do what we couldn’t do before?”
Don’t miss this important conversation! ]]> Technology Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:08:00 +0200 0 0 Why cybersecurity is becoming a competitive advantage for SA businesses 0 0 TechCentral full 35:38 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1633100 https://iono.fm/e/1633100 The first episode of season 1 – you can catch our “season 0” episodes here – opens with a sharp focus on South African Auto Week, where the pressure on local vehicle manufacturers dominated discussions.
Original equipment manufacturers are facing a tough balancing act as imports rise while local assembly plants wrestle with costs, scale and uncertainty.
From policy to products, the show then shifts gears to tyre maker Bridgestone, which has launched new tyre offerings for the South African market. In an interview, Jacques Rikhotso, CEO of Bridgestone South Africa, unpacks how changing vehicle technologies – including heavier EVs – are influencing tyre design, durability and safety.
Chinese brands also feature prominently. A dramatic crash test involving the Chery Tiggo 9 Pro highlights the rapid strides Chinese manufacturers are making in safety engineering. Meanwhile, BYD continues to push the boundaries of EV infrastructure, announcing plans for a 1MW ultra-fast charging network, championed by BYD executive Stella Li.
Adventure meets electrification with a discussion on Volvo EX30 Cross Country, which recently tackled the iconic Sani Pass – a symbolic moment for EV capability in rugged African conditions.
On the new-car front, the team runs through arrivals and upcoming launches including the BYD Dolphin Surf and the forthcoming Volvo EX60.
The review spotlight falls on the Lexus GX550, described as the “anti-EV”: a traditional, petrol-powered luxury off-roader that doubles down on ruggedness rather than electrification.
Rounding out the episode is an interview with Andrew Kirby, CEO of Toyota South Africa, and we speculate on the electric vehicle models Toyota is likely to introduce into the local market in 2026. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:22:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E1 - 'William, Prince of Wheels' 0 0 TechCentral full 1:14:40 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1633098 https://iono.fm/e/1633098 The first episode of season 1 – you can catch our “season 0” episodes here – opens with a sharp focus on South African Auto Week, where the pressure on local vehicle manufacturers dominated discussions.
Original equipment manufacturers are facing a tough balancing act as imports rise while local assembly plants wrestle with costs, scale and uncertainty.
From policy to products, the show then shifts gears to tyre maker Bridgestone, which has launched new tyre offerings for the South African market. In an interview, Jacques Rikhotso, CEO of Bridgestone South Africa, unpacks how changing vehicle technologies – including heavier EVs – are influencing tyre design, durability and safety.
Chinese brands also feature prominently. A dramatic crash test involving the Chery Tiggo 9 Pro highlights the rapid strides Chinese manufacturers are making in safety engineering. Meanwhile, BYD continues to push the boundaries of EV infrastructure, announcing plans for a 1MW ultra-fast charging network, championed by BYD executive Stella Li.
Adventure meets electrification with a discussion on Volvo EX30 Cross Country, which recently tackled the iconic Sani Pass – a symbolic moment for EV capability in rugged African conditions.
On the new-car front, the team runs through arrivals and upcoming launches including the BYD Dolphin Surf and the forthcoming Volvo EX60.
The review spotlight falls on the Lexus GX550, described as the “anti-EV”: a traditional, petrol-powered luxury off-roader that doubles down on ruggedness rather than electrification.
Rounding out the episode is an interview with Andrew Kirby, CEO of Toyota South Africa, and we speculate on the electric vehicle models Toyota is likely to introduce into the local market in 2026. ]]> Automotive Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:17:00 +0200 0 0 Watts & Wheels S1E1: 'William, Prince of Wheels' 0 0 William Kelly, Duncan McLeod full 1:14:40 Watts & Wheels https://iono.fm/e/1628028 https://iono.fm/e/1628028 Yet many organisations still face challenges in converting these ambitions into measurable business outcomes. According to Cliff de Wit, group chief innovation officer at Accelera Digital Group, the success of AI-driven initiatives depends as much on culture and governance as it does on technology.
In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+ podcast, De Wit outlines the practical steps leaders can take to reduce organisational friction, strengthen data foundations and enable cloud-led innovation at scale.
“Cloud is no longer an IT decision. It is the foundation on which every modern AI strategy is built,” says De Wit. And technical readiness alone is not enough. “The biggest barrier is not the tech, it’s whether the organisation is prepared to manage change at the pace AI requires.”
In this episode, De Wit discusses:
• The concept of organisational drag and how it affects AI progress;
● Approaches to strengthening culture and governance within digital programmes;
● The role of the C-suite in accelerating cloud and AI adoption while demonstrating clear return on investment;
● What an AI-ready data foundation looks like and why it is essential;
● How strong data management practices unlock new sources of business value; and
● Why African organisations are increasingly well positioned to advance rapidly through cloud-first strategies.
The discussion provides practical guidance for business and technology leaders seeking a clearer understanding of how cloud, data and culture intersect to enable enterprise-wide AI transformation. Don’t miss it! TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 11 Dec 2025 18:05:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Africa’s digital transformation – unlocking AI through cloud and culture 0 0 TechCentral full 40:18 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1628024 https://iono.fm/e/1628024 Yet many organisations still face challenges in converting these ambitions into measurable business outcomes. According to Cliff de Wit, group chief innovation officer at Accelera Digital Group, the success of AI-driven initiatives depends as much on culture and governance as it does on technology.
In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+ podcast, De Wit outlines the practical steps leaders can take to reduce organisational friction, strengthen data foundations and enable cloud-led innovation at scale.
“Cloud is no longer an IT decision. It is the foundation on which every modern AI strategy is built,” says De Wit. And technical readiness alone is not enough. “The biggest barrier is not the tech, it’s whether the organisation is prepared to manage change at the pace AI requires.”
In this episode, De Wit discusses:
• The concept of organisational drag and how it affects AI progress;
● Approaches to strengthening culture and governance within digital programmes;
● The role of the C-suite in accelerating cloud and AI adoption while demonstrating clear return on investment;
● What an AI-ready data foundation looks like and why it is essential;
● How strong data management practices unlock new sources of business value; and
● Why African organisations are increasingly well positioned to advance rapidly through cloud-first strategies.
The discussion provides practical guidance for business and technology leaders seeking a clearer understanding of how cloud, data and culture intersect to enable enterprise-wide AI transformation. Don’t miss it!
By Accelera Digital Group ]]> Technology Thu, 11 Dec 2025 18:02:00 +0200 0 0 Africa’s digital transformation – unlocking AI through cloud and culture 0 0 TechCentral full 40:18 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1625675 https://iono.fm/e/1625675 In this episode of TCS+, Cloud on Demand’s Xenia Rhode and Developmenthub’s Odwa Ndyaluvane explain how the AWS distribution model benefits partners in the same ecosystem.
In this episode, Rhode and Ndyavulane discuss:
• An overview of the AWS distribution model and its ecosystem partners;
• Who Developmenthub is and how the company started;
• The support Cloud on Demand, an AWS select partner, provides to Developmenthub;
• The business outcomes that Developmenthub has achieved through the partnership;
• The business development support available within the partner ecosystem;
• The new market access opportunities Cloud on Demand was able to avail to Developmenthub; and
• New revenue streams that Developmenthub was able to tap into because of the Cloud on Demand partnership.
Don’t miss the discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:42:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | How Cloud on Demand helps partners thrive in the AWS ecosystem 0 0 TechCentral full 30:32 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1625673 https://iono.fm/e/1625673 In this episode of TCS+, Cloud on Demand’s Xenia Rhode and Developmenthub’s Odwa Ndyaluvane explain how the AWS distribution model benefits partners in the same ecosystem.
This is the second podcast in a series of three with Cloud on Demand on the AWS distribution model. You can catch the first instalment here.
In this episode, Rhode and Ndyavulane discuss:
• An overview of the AWS distribution model and its ecosystem partners;
• Who Developmenthub is and how the company started;
• The support Cloud on Demand, an AWS select partner, provides to Developmenthub;
• The business outcomes that Developmenthub has achieved through the partnership;
• The business development support available within the partner ecosystem;
• The new market access opportunities Cloud on Demand was able to avail to Developmenthub; and
• New revenue streams that Developmenthub was able to tap into because of the Cloud on Demand partnership.
Don’t miss the discussion. ]]> Technology Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:26:00 +0200 0 0 How Cloud on Demand helps partners thrive in the AWS ecosystem 0 0 TechCentral full 30:32 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1623293 https://iono.fm/e/1623293 Telkom’s resurgence has put pressure on both MTN and Vodacom, with MTN acknowledging it has “discernibly” lost prepaid market share.
This is one of the topics covered in this wide-ranging and exclusive TechCentral Show interview with MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita, who sat down earlier this week with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod to discuss this and other major topics, including:
• The impact of online gambling on the telecoms sector;
• The need for further consolidation in South African telecoms, and why Mupita won’t completely rule out a deal with Telkom, provided the “stars align”;
• Vodacom’s acquisition of a co-controlling stake in Vumatel parent Maziv and how MTN will respond;
• The impact of low-Earth orbit satellite connectivity on the telecoms industry and how MTN plans to work with companies like SpaceX/Starlink and Amazon Leo – and whether he sees them as competitors or partners (or both);
• The spectacular turnaround in Nigeria and whether it’s durable;
• The future of MTN’s involvement in Iran, and the lessons learnt from the group’s exit from other Middle Eastern markets;
• Plans to shift MTN Group’s focus to East Africa in the coming years; and
• Why he’s fascinated by the impact that AI could have on telecoms in Africa.
Don’t miss a great discussion on the future of MTN and telecoms in Africa! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 28 Nov 2025 12:24:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita on competition, AI and the future of mobile 0 0 TechCentral full 57:23 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1623292 https://iono.fm/e/1623292 Telkom’s resurgence has put pressure on both MTN and Vodacom, with MTN acknowledging it has “discernibly” lost prepaid market share.
This is one of the topics covered in this wide-ranging and exclusive TechCentral Show interview with MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita, who sat down earlier this week with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod to discuss this and other major topics, including:
• The impact of online gambling on the telecoms sector;
• The need for further consolidation in South African telecoms, and why Mupita won’t completely rule out a deal with Telkom, provided the “stars align”;
• Vodacom’s acquisition of a co-controlling stake in Vumatel parent Maziv and how MTN will respond;
• The impact of low-Earth orbit satellite connectivity on the telecoms industry and how MTN plans to work with companies like SpaceX/Starlink and Amazon Leo – and whether he sees them as competitors or partners (or both);
• The spectacular turnaround in Nigeria and whether it’s durable;
• The future of MTN’s involvement in Iran, and the lessons learnt from the group’s exit from other Middle Eastern markets;
• Plans to shift MTN Group’s focus to East Africa in the coming years; and
• Why he’s fascinated by the impact that AI could have on telecoms in Africa.
Don’t miss a great discussion on the future of MTN and telecoms in Africa! ]]> Technology Fri, 28 Nov 2025 12:22:00 +0200 0 0 MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita on competition, AI and the future of mobile 0 0 TechCentral full 57:23 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1620778 https://iono.fm/e/1620778 Cull says there is a discernibly different tone from Malatsi compared to his predecessors: more openness, more willingness to engage stakeholders and a stronger focus on evidence-based policymaking. However, while the intent is encouraging, South Africa’s ICT policy environment remains inconsistent, slow and fragmented.
In the podcast, Cull discusses:
• Malatsi’s policy colloquium and what came out of it
• The state of ICT policy and regulation in South Africa
• The biggest policy bottlenecks holding back growth in the ICT sector
• Why government doesn’t fully grasp the economic impact of digital infrastructure
• The latest on the next spectrum auction
• The EU’s decision to hand much of the 6GHz band to mobile operators – and why South Africa shouldn’t blindly copy it
• What’s needed to fix the Rica legislation
• Why Starlink isn’t coming to South Africa anytime soon
Cull also shares the top priority areas he’d focus on in 2026 if he was minister of communications.
It’s a great discussion – don’t miss it! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 21 Nov 2025 09:22:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Dominic Cull on fixing South Africa’s ICT policy bottlenecks 0 0 TechCentral full 1:04:43 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1620775 https://iono.fm/e/1620775 Cull says there is a discernibly different tone from Malatsi compared to his predecessors: more openness, more willingness to engage stakeholders and a stronger focus on evidence-based policymaking. However, while the intent is encouraging, South Africa’s ICT policy environment remains inconsistent, slow and fragmented.
In the podcast, Cull discusses:
• Malatsi’s policy colloquium and what came out of it
• The state of ICT policy and regulation in South Africa
• The biggest policy bottlenecks holding back growth in the ICT sector
• Why government doesn’t fully grasp the economic impact of digital infrastructure
• The latest on the next spectrum auction
• The EU’s decision to hand much of the 6GHz band to mobile operators – and why South Africa shouldn’t blindly copy it
• What’s needed to fix the Rica legislation
• Why Starlink isn’t coming to South Africa anytime soon
Cull also shares the top priority areas he’d focus on in 2026 if he was minister of communications.
It’s a great discussion – don’t miss it! ]]> Technology Fri, 21 Nov 2025 09:21:00 +0200 0 0 Dominic Cull on fixing South Africa’s ICT policy bottlenecks 0 0 TechCentral full 1:04:43 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1619003 https://iono.fm/e/1619003 After a highly successful first season featuring CIOs from across the corporate landscape, we’re kicking off season 2 with a conversation with Khaya Mbanga, chief information and digital officer at BDO South Africa, where he also heads the firm’s growing BDO Digital division.
BDO is one of the world’s largest professional services firms, specialising in audit, tax and advisory. Headquartered in Belgium, its name comes from the three founding firms – Binder, Dijker and Otte – that merged to form the organisation.
In this wide-ranging episode, Mbanga reflects on his career journey through consulting, FMCG and mining; how he first got into technology; and the evolution of the CIO role into one that now straddles digital strategy, cybersecurity, AI and organisational change.
He also unpacks his passion for artificial intelligence, including his involvement in the IITPSA Special Interest Group on AI and Robotics, and offers his perspective on how AI will reshape auditing, tax and broader business functions in South Africa. From managing hallucinations in large language models to rethinking talent pipelines, Mbanga shares candid insights into both the opportunities and risks ahead.
Topics covered include:
• What it means to be the CIDO of BDO South Africa
• Career background across consulting, FMCG and mining
• His first computer and how he got into technology
• Robotic process automation in the mining sector
• How AI will transform auditing and tax
• Dealing with the risk of AI hallucinations in data-sensitive environments
• The broader impact of AI on South African business
• Technology talent shortages and what skills CIOs need today
• His favourite productivity hacks and tools
Don’t miss this great opener to the new season of Meet the CIO. If you missed any of the interviews from season 1, you can find them all on TechCentral. TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 17 Nov 2025 14:20:00 +0200 0 0 Meet the CIO | How BDO’s Khaya Mbanga is preparing the firm for the AI future 0 0 TechCentral full 34:38 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1619000 https://iono.fm/e/1619000 After a highly successful first season featuring CIOs from across the corporate landscape, we’re kicking off season 2 with a conversation with Khaya Mbanga, chief information and digital officer at BDO South Africa, where he also heads the firm’s growing BDO Digital division.
BDO is one of the world’s largest professional services firms, specialising in audit, tax and advisory. Headquartered in Belgium, its name comes from the three founding firms – Binder, Dijker and Otte – that merged to form the organisation.
In this wide-ranging episode, Mbanga reflects on his career journey through consulting, FMCG and mining; how he first got into technology; and the evolution of the CIO role into one that now straddles digital strategy, cybersecurity, AI and organisational change.
He also unpacks his passion for artificial intelligence, including his involvement in the IITPSA Special Interest Group on AI and Robotics, and offers his perspective on how AI will reshape auditing, tax and broader business functions in South Africa. From managing hallucinations in large language models to rethinking talent pipelines, Mbanga shares candid insights into both the opportunities and risks ahead.
Topics covered include:
• What it means to be the CIDO of BDO South Africa
• Career background across consulting, FMCG and mining
• His first computer and how he got into technology
• Robotic process automation in the mining sector
• How AI will transform auditing and tax
• Dealing with the risk of AI hallucinations in data-sensitive environments
• The broader impact of AI on South African business
• Technology talent shortages and what skills CIOs need today
• His favourite productivity hacks and tools
Don’t miss this great opener to the new season of Meet the CIO. If you missed any of the interviews from season 1, you can find them all on TechCentral. TechCentral]]> Management Mon, 17 Nov 2025 14:18:00 +0200 0 0 How BDO’s Khaya Mbanga is preparing the firm for an AI future 0 0 TechCentral full 34:38 Meet the CIO https://iono.fm/e/1615389 https://iono.fm/e/1615389 He tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the future of BMW’s Rosslyn manufacturing plant in Pretoria, which was established more than half a century ago, and the urgent need for new government policy to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa is future-fit and ready for the shift to electric mobility.
Van Binsbergen also discusses the rise of imported vehicles in the sales mix in South Africa – including the rapid expansion of Chinese brands. China is a market he knows well, having spent three years there with BMW.
In the interview, TechCentral Show viewers will also hear about:
• The state of the local automotive manufacturing industry;
• What South Africa needs to implement in policy reform to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa – and why this is urgent;
• How the country must adapt to the global shift to electric mobility;
• The role of BMW’s IT Hub in South Africa;
• BMW’s global EV strategy, and what that means for South African EV buyers; and
• BMW’s Neue Klasse vehicles, which run the company’s next-generation EV platform, and why they are significant to its future.
Don’t miss a fascinating discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 06 Nov 2025 11:16:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | BMW CEO Peter van Binsbergen on the future of South Africa’s automotive industry 0 0 TechCentral full 30:00 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1615387 https://iono.fm/e/1615387 He tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the future of BMW’s Rosslyn manufacturing plant in Pretoria, which was established more than half a centry ago, and the urgent need for new government policy to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa is future-fit and ready for the shift to electric mobility.
Van Binsbergen also discusses the rise of imported vehicles in the sales mix in South Africa – including the rapid expansion of Chinese brands. China is a market he knows well, having spent three years there with BMW.
In the interview, TechCentral Show viewers will also hear about:
• The state of the local automotive manufacturing industry;
• What South Africa needs to implement in policy reform to ensure the automotive industrial base in South Africa – and why this is urgent;
• How the country must adapt to the global shift to electric mobility;
• The role of BMW’s IT Hub in South Africa;
• BMW’s global EV strategy, and what that means for South African EV buyers; and
• BMW’s Neue Klasse vehicles, which run the company’s next-generation EV platform, and why they are significant to its future.
Don’t miss a fascinating discussion! ]]> Technology Thu, 06 Nov 2025 11:15:00 +0200 0 0 BMW CEO Peter van Binsbergen on the future of South Africa’s automotive industry 0 0 TechCentral full 30:00 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1612029 https://iono.fm/e/1612029 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Altron Group chief technology officer Bongani Andy Mabaso explains the rationale for the investment, what building the factory entailed and what the anchor tenants are using the platform to do.
Mabaso tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod:
• What an AI factory is exactly and why Altron has decided to build one;
• What’s involved in deploying AI infrastructure, especially from a power and cooling perspective – and why Altron decided to locate its AI factory at Teraco;
• What companies like Lelapa AI, MathU and Dataviue are using the Altron AI Factory to do;
• Why Altron partnered with Asus and HPE on the project;
• How the infrastructure can be used; and
• The advantages of hosting an AI factory in South Africa, as opposed to an offshore data centre – it’s not only about better network latency.
Don’t miss the conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 28 Oct 2025 11:51:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Why Altron is building an AI factory 0 0 TechCentral full 26:32 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1612028 https://iono.fm/e/1612028 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Altron Group chief technology officer Bongani Andy Mabaso explains the rationale for the investment, what building the factory entailed and what the anchor tenants are using the platform to do.
Mabaso tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod:
• What an AI factory is exactly and why Altron has decided to build one;
• What’s involved in deploying AI infrastructure, especially from a power and cooling perspective – and why Altron decided to locate its AI factory at Teraco;
• What companies like Lelapa AI, MathU and Dataviue are using the Altron AI Factory to do;
• Why Altron partnered with Asus and HPE on the project;
• How the infrastructure can be used; and
• The advantages of hosting an AI factory in South Africa, as opposed to an offshore data centre – it’s not only about better network latency.
Don’t miss the conversation! ]]> Technology Tue, 28 Oct 2025 11:47:00 +0200 0 0 Why Altron is building an AI factory 0 0 TechCentral full 26:32 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1611971 https://iono.fm/e/1611971 To unpack the decision to appoint an advisory board, TechCentral is joined in this episode of TCS+ by Videsha Proothveerajh, director of Vodacom Business, who explains that it’s all part of Vodacom’s shift from being a traditional telecommunications provider to a “techco”, or technology company.
In this episodes Proothveerajh chats about:
• The advisory board, who it is comprised of and the purpose it is meant to serve in the business services landscape in South Africa;
• The fact that the pace of technology change has accelerated coming out of Covid and how this influenced Vodacom Business’s approach to digital transformation;
• How the new advisory board influences Vodacom’s approach to guiding enterprise clients on digital transformation;
• The role the latest telecoms technologies, including 5G and the internet of things, are playing in the business-to-business environment in which Vodacom Business operates;
• How Vodacom Business tailors its digital transformation solutions to meet the needs of different industries or enterprise segments, or indeed of customers that might not be as advanced as others in their application of technology;
• The most common obstacles South African enterprises face when it comes to technology adoption and digital transformation; and
• The emerging trends and technologies that will have the biggest impact on the business market in the next few years.
Don’t miss an informative discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 28 Oct 2025 09:16:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Videsha Proothveerajh on Vodacom Business’s new approach to enterprise technology 0 0 TechCentral full 32:26 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1611970 https://iono.fm/e/1611970 To unpack the decision to appoint an advisory board, TechCentral is joined in this episode of TCS+ by Videsha Proothveerajh, director of Vodacom Business, who explains that it’s all part of Vodacom’s shift from being a traditional telecommunications provider to a “techco”, or technology company.
In this episodes Proothveerajh chats about:
• The advisory board, who it is comprised of and the purpose it is meant to serve in the business services landscape in South Africa;
• The fact that the pace of technology change has accelerated coming out of Covid and how this influenced Vodacom Business’s approach to digital transformation;
• How the new advisory board influences Vodacom’s approach to guiding enterprise clients on digital transformation;
• The role the latest telecoms technologies, including 5G and the internet of things, are playing in the business-to-business environment in which Vodacom Business operates;
• How Vodacom Business tailors its digital transformation solutions to meet the needs of different industries or enterprise segments, or indeed of customers that might not be as advanced as others in their application of technology;
• The most common obstacles South African enterprises face when it comes to technology adoption and digital transformation; and
• The emerging trends and technologies that will have the biggest impact on the business market in the next few years.
Don’t miss an informative discussion! ]]> Technology Tue, 28 Oct 2025 09:14:00 +0200 0 0 Videsha Proothveerajh on Vodacom Business’s new approach to enterprise technology 0 0 TechCentral full 32:26 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1610680 https://iono.fm/e/1610680 The rise of generative AI has put hardware at the epicentre of the next wave of economic growth, with chip makers such as Nvidia and AMD reaching record valuations as demand for advanced chips far outstrips supply.
But as AI data centres expand, so, too, does their consumption of resources, with their demand for water and electricity rising exponentially.
FinalSpark is a Swiss biocomputing company exploring more efficient ways of computing – and it’s turned to human neurons as a potential solution.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Fred Jordan, co-founder and co-CEO of FinalSpark, gives insight into “wetware” (in effect, living hardware) and what it means for the future of computing.
Jordan delves into:
• What inspired him turn to living neurons as a means of processing;
• Parallels between his training as a signal processing engineer and his work with living neurons;
• Why FinalSpark uses human neurons and not any other like those from a cat on an octopus;
• How skin cells are used to “create” the neurons;
• How the neurons are fed, stored and kept alive;
• How long the neurons live for and the sort of computations FinalSpark has made them perform; and
• His views on the future of computing.
Don’t miss this intriguing discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 23 Oct 2025 14:11:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | The company building a ‘living computer’ with human cells 0 0 TechCentral full 19:31 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1610679 https://iono.fm/e/1610679 The rise of generative AI has put hardware at the epicentre of the next wave of economic growth, with chip makers such as Nvidia and AMD reaching record valuations as demand for advanced chips far outstrips supply.
But as AI data centres expand, so, too, does their consumption of resources, with their demand for water and electricity rising exponentially.
FinalSpark is a Swiss biocomputing company exploring more efficient ways of computing – and it’s turned to human neurons as a potential solution.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Fred Jordan, co-founder and co-CEO of FinalSpark, gives insight into “wetware” (in effect, living hardware) and what it means for the future of computing.
Jordan delves into:
• What inspired him turn to living neurons as a means of processing;
• Parallels between his training as a signal processing engineer and his work with living neurons;
• Why FinalSpark uses human neurons and not any other like those from a cat on an octopus;
• How skin cells are used to “create” the neurons;
• How the neurons are fed, stored and kept alive;
• How long the neurons live for and the sort of computations FinalSpark has made them perform; and
• His views on the future of computing.
Don’t miss this intriguing discussion! ]]> Technology Thu, 23 Oct 2025 14:06:00 +0200 0 0 The company building a ‘living computer’ with human cells 0 0 TechCentral full 19:31 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1610280 https://iono.fm/e/1610280 To manage communications effectively, businesses need to have a clear view of the entire Sim estate across the organisation. Monitoring usage and having the control needed to provide (or restrict) resources such as voice minutes and data quickly and easily are critical to managing costs effectively.
MSB Micro Systems is a company specialising in managed network connectivity for corporate entities. In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, MSB Microsystems founder and CEO Danny Stemmet talks about the ins and outs of Sim management.
Stemmet delves into:
• MSB Micro’s history and how the company changed from being a software development house to a services company;
• How the rise of hybrid work environments and remote teams have affected demand for Sim management services, especially among mobile workforces;
• How MSB Micro Systems supports Sims that perform machine-to-machine communications and other internet-of-things functions;
• How MSB’s network-agnostic approach provides flexibility its resellers and, by extension, their clients;
• How MSB’s pricing model supports businesses at every stage growth, helping them scale appropriately when they need to;
• The key benefits for a company that chooses to use a managed connectivity service rather than managing their mobile estate directly with an operator; and
• Why MSB Micro is changing its business model from being a managed service provider to a platform business.
Don’t miss this informative conversation. TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:55:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Managing Sims, saving money: how MSB Micro keeps businesses connected 0 0 TechCentral full 12:12 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1610279 https://iono.fm/e/1610279 To manage communications effectively, businesses need to have a clear view of the entire Sim estate across the organisation. Monitoring usage and having the control needed to provide (or restrict) resources such as voice minutes and data quickly and easily are critical to managing costs effectively.
MSB Micro Systems is a company specialising in managed network connectivity for corporate entities. In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, MSB Microsystems founder and CEO Danny Stemmet talks about the ins and outs of Sim management.
Stemmet delves into:
• MSB Micro’s history and how the company changed from being a software development house to a services company;
• How the rise of hybrid work environments and remote teams have affected demand for Sim management services, especially among mobile workforces;
• How MSB Micro Systems supports Sims that perform machine-to-machine communications and other internet-of-things functions;
• How MSB’s network-agnostic approach provides flexibility its resellers and, by extension, their clients;
• How MSB’s pricing model supports businesses at every stage growth, helping them scale appropriately when they need to;
• The key benefits for a company that chooses to use a managed connectivity service rather than managing their mobile estate directly with an operator; and
• Why MSB Micro is changing its business model from being a managed service provider to a platform business.
Don’t miss this informative conversation. ]]> Technology Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:52:00 +0200 0 0 Managing Sims, saving money: how MSB Micro keeps businesses connected 0 0 TechCentral full 12:12 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1610152 https://iono.fm/e/1610152 Crypto payments specialist MoneyBadger recently signed a deal with fintech Scan to Pay allowing crypto wallet users pay at more than 650 000 stores nationwide.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, MoneyBadger CEO Carel van Wyk and Luno country manager for South Africa Christo de Wit tell TechCentral’s Nathi Ndlovu about what the partnership means for crypto platforms, their users and the broader economy.
Van Wyk and De Wit delve into:
• The mindset shift that happens when users move from being crypto investors to day-to-day users of digital currencies;
• How crypto payments allow for immediate settlement in rands and what that means for merchants and users;
• How merchants benefit by supporting crypto payments at their stores;
• Why a crypto investor might want to consider using it to make payments;
• The tax implications that must be considered before investing in or using crypto for payments;
• The role cryptocurrencies play in promoting financial inclusion; and
• The role cryptocurrencies will play as the Reserve Bank modernises the National Payment System.
Don’t miss an interesting discussion! TechCentral]]> Technology Wed, 22 Oct 2025 11:44:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Why South Africans are starting to spend crypto, not just trade it 0 0 TechCentral full 29:47 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1610151 https://iono.fm/e/1610151 Crypto payments specialist MoneyBadger recently signed a deal with fintech Scan to Pay allowing crypto wallet users pay at more than 650 000 stores nationwide.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, MoneyBadger CEO Carel van Wyk and Luno country manager for South Africa Christo de Wit tell TechCentral’s Nathi Ndlovu about what the partnership means for crypto platforms, their users and the broader economy.
Van Wyk and De Wit delve into:
• The mindset shift that happens when users move from being crypto investors to day-to-day users of digital currencies;
• How crypto payments allow for immediate settlement in rands and what that means for merchants and users;
• How merchants benefit by supporting crypto payments at their stores;
• Why a crypto investor might want to consider using it to make payments;
• The tax implications that must be considered before investing in or using crypto for payments;
• The role cryptocurrencies play in promoting financial inclusion; and
• The role cryptocurrencies will play as the Reserve Bank modernises the National Payment System.
Don’t miss an interesting discussion! ]]> Technology Wed, 22 Oct 2025 11:43:00 +0200 0 0 Why South Africans are starting to spend crypto, not just trade it 0 0 TechCentral full 29:47 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1609812 https://iono.fm/e/1609812 TechCentral]]> Tech News Tue, 21 Oct 2025 14:54:00 +0200 0 0 Sample Certus AI call between customer and restaurant 0 0 TechCentral full 2:37 AI-generated content for TechCentral https://iono.fm/e/1606160 https://iono.fm/e/1606160 Consider this analogy: if AWS is a powerful cloud engine, then the reseller acts as the skilled driver. But who manages the complexities of operating the vehicle, such as maintenance, refuelling, training and necessary pit stops? That administrative heavy lifting falls to the distributor.
In this episode of TCS+, Senzo Mbhele, MD at Cloud On Demand, explains the AWS distribution model and its advantages.
Mbhele discusses:
• The main business challenges that the AWS distribution model addresses;
• How distributors create financial value and improve return on investment for others in the ecosystem, including end customers;
• The support distribution partners provide to internal teams, enabling them to achieve more without the need to hire additional staff;
• The expertise distributors offer to help chief information officers and chief technology officers manage risk, security and governance throughout their cloud journey;
• Common misconceptions that may cause executives to hesitate before partnering with a distributor; and
• Indicators that suggest it might be time for a business to consider the services of a distribution partner, along with the benefits this can bring.
Don’t miss this engaging conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 10 Oct 2025 09:37:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | Cloud On Demand's Senzo Mbhele on the benefits of the AWS distribution model 0 0 TechCentral full 51:26 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1606159 https://iono.fm/e/1606159 Consider this analogy: if AWS is a powerful cloud engine, then the reseller acts as the skilled driver. But who manages the complexities of operating the vehicle, such as maintenance, refuelling, training and necessary pit stops? That administrative heavy lifting falls to the distributor.
In this episode of TCS+, Senzo Mbhele, MD at Cloud On Demand, explains the AWS distribution model and its advantages.
Mbhele discusses:
• The main business challenges that the AWS distribution model addresses;
• How distributors create financial value and improve return on investment for others in the ecosystem, including end customers;
• The support distribution partners provide to internal teams, enabling them to achieve more without the need to hire additional staff;
• The expertise distributors offer to help chief information officers and chief technology officers manage risk, security and governance throughout their cloud journey;
• Common misconceptions that may cause executives to hesitate before partnering with a distributor; and
• Indicators that suggest it might be time for a business to consider the services of a distribution partner, along with the benefits this can bring.
Don’t miss this engaging conversation! ]]> Technology Fri, 10 Oct 2025 09:35:00 +0200 0 0 Cloud On Demand's Senzo Mbhele on the benefits of the AWS distribution model 0 0 TechCentral full 51:26 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1604383 https://iono.fm/e/1604383 That’s the view of Frederik Zietsman, CEO of Naspers-owned Takealot Group – South Africa’s largest online retailer – who was speaking to TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show.
In the interview, Zietsman unpacks what’s driving the rapid adoption of online shopping in South Africa – Covid-19 was a key trigger – and what the future holds as international e-commerce giants step up their investments in the country.
He also discusses:
• How the competitive dynamics of the market have changed in recent years;
• The impact of the entry of international giants such as Amazon and Walmart and how this will reshape the market in the coming years;
• The decision to expand subsidiary Mr D’s focus from fast food to include new product categories;
• The township opportunity and how Takealot is working to crack that market;
• Takealot’s plans to move to electric vehicles in its logistics fleet, including a look at what’s needed to introduce electric motorbikes at scale;
• The challenge of crime in the logistics chain and what’s being done to fight it;
• Why Takealot is getting into the home loans business; and
• What’s going to drive the company’s growth in the next few years.
Don’t miss a fascinating conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Mon, 06 Oct 2025 11:45:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Takealot CEO Frederik Zietsman on township growth, EVs and the future of online retail 0 0 TechCentral full 35:15 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1604382 https://iono.fm/e/1604382 That’s the view of Frederik Zietsman, CEO of Naspers-owned Takealot Group – South Africa’s largest online retailer – who was speaking to TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show.
In the interview, Zietsman unpacks what’s driving the rapid adoption of online shopping in South Africa – Covid-19 was a key trigger – and what the future holds as international e-commerce giants step up their investments in the country.
He also discusses:
• How the competitive dynamics of the market have changed in recent years;
• The impact of the entry of international giants such as Amazon and Walmart and how this will reshape the market in the coming years;
• The decision to expand subsidiary Mr D’s focus from fast food to include new product categories;
• The township opportunity and how Takealot is working to crack that market;
• Takealot’s plans to move to electric vehicles in its logistics fleet, including a look at what’s needed to introduce electric motorbikes at scale;
• The challenge of crime in the logistics chain and what’s being done to fight it;
• Why Takealot is getting into the home loans business; and
• What’s going to drive the company’s growth in the next few years.
Don’t miss a fascinating conversation! ]]> Technology Mon, 06 Oct 2025 11:43:00 +0200 0 0 Takealot CEO Frederik Zietsman on township growth, EVs and the future of online retail 0 0 TechCentral full 35:15 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1603800 https://iono.fm/e/1603800 Dubbed Seacom 2.0, the cable system – which will have an expected design capacity of a staggering 2 000Tbit/s – will be larger than the company’s original system, which brought high-speed connectivity to Africa’s eastern coastline when it was launched in 2009.
The new system, which will include an “express route” from South Africa to Singapore and leg around South Africa to Lobito in Angola – and which will also cover much of the same East African coastline as the first system – will use the latest fibre-optic technology and 48 fibre pairs to deliver its extreme total capacity.
Alpheus Mangale, CEO of Seacom, sat down with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod for an exclusive first interview with the TechCentral Show to unpack the announcement and provide much greater detail about the deployment – including its timelines and the technology that will be used.
In the interview, Mangale touches on a range of topics, including:
• What’s involved in building a submarine cable system of this magnitude;
• Why Seacom has chosen the routing for the cable that it has;
• The need for great redundancy around the African continent, and how this fed into Seacom’s planning for Seacom 2.0;
• The commercial model for the new system and what this means for the region;
• The assumptions Seacom is making about future internet demand and how that feeds into its return-on-investment forecasts;
• How the system will be funded and who is backing it;
• The risks inherent in building telecommunications infrastructure at this scale; and
• The terrestrial infrastructure that will be deployed to support Seacom 2.0, including landing stations and edge data centres.
Don’t miss a fascinating interview! TechCentral]]> Technology Fri, 03 Oct 2025 12:05:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | Seacom 2.0: Alpheus Mangale unpacks all the details about the giant new subsea system 0 0 TechCentral full 44:03 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1603797 https://iono.fm/e/1603797 Dubbed Seacom 2.0, the cable system – which will have an expected design capacity of a staggering 2 000Tbit/s – will be larger than the company’s original system, which brought high-speed connectivity to Africa’s eastern coastline when it was launched in 2009.
The new system, which will include an “express route” from South Africa to Singapore and leg around South Africa to Lobito in Angola – and which will also cover much of the same East African coastline as the first system – will use the latest fibre-optic technology and 48 fibre pairs to deliver its extreme total capacity.
Alpheus Mangale, CEO of Seacom, sat down with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod for an exclusive first interview with the TechCentral Show to unpack the announcement and provide much greater detail about the deployment – including its timelines and the technology that will be used.
In the interview, Mangale touches on a range of topics, including:
• What’s involved in building a submarine cable system of this magnitude;
• Why Seacom has chosen the routing for the cable that it has;
• The need for great redundancy around the African continent, and how this fed into Seacom’s planning for Seacom 2.0;
• The commercial model for the new system and what this means for the region;
• The assumptions Seacom is making about future internet demand and how that feeds into its return-on-investment forecasts;
• How the system will be funded and who is backing it;
• The risks inherent in building telecommunications infrastructure at this scale; and
• The terrestrial infrastructure that will be deployed to support Seacom 2.0, including landing stations and edge data centres.
Don’t miss a fascinating interview! ]]> Technology Fri, 03 Oct 2025 12:04:00 +0200 0 0 Seacom 2.0: Alpheus Mangale unpacks all the details about the giant new subsea system 0 0 TechCentral full 44:03 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1600701 https://iono.fm/e/1600701 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Stephen Linnell, CEO of PayInc, tells TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu about the strategy behind the rebrand to PayInc and how that fits into the utility’s vision of the payments ecosystem in South Africa and the broader Southern Africa region.
Linnell delves into:
• PayInc’s new ownership structure with the Reserve Bank taking over 50% ownership from the private banks;
• How the Reserve Bank’s participation will help PayInc achieve its goals;
• An assessment of PayShap since its 2023 launch and what comes next;
• What the proposed inclusion of non-bank players including fintechs, retailers and telecommunications operators in the national payments and settlements system means for the economy;
• The efforts PayInc is making to implement instant payments at a regional level; and
• Emerging payment technologies like central bank digital currencies and stablecoins.
Don’t miss this informative discussion. TechCentral]]> Technology Thu, 25 Sep 2025 09:18:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | PayInc CEO Stephen Linnell on South Africa's payments revolution 0 0 TechCentral full 25:18 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1600700 https://iono.fm/e/1600700 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Stephen Linnell, CEO of PayInc, tells TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu about the strategy behind the rebrand to PayInc and how that fits into the utility’s vision of the payments ecosystem in South Africa and the broader Southern Africa region.
Linnell delves into:
• PayInc’s new ownership structure with the Reserve Bank taking over 50% ownership from the private banks;
• How the Reserve Bank’s participation will help PayInc achieve its goals;
• An assessment of PayShap since its 2023 launch and what comes next;
• What the proposed inclusion of non-bank players including fintechs, retailers and telecommunications operators in the national payments and settlements system means for the economy;
• The efforts PayInc is making to implement instant payments at a regional level; and
• Emerging payment technologies like central bank digital currencies and stablecoins.
Don’t miss this informative discussion. ]]> Technology Thu, 25 Sep 2025 09:06:00 +0200 0 0 PayInc CEO Stephen Linnell on South Africa's payments revolution 0 0 TechCentral full 25:18 TCS - The TechCentral Show https://iono.fm/e/1600061 https://iono.fm/e/1600061 Some are going as far as repatriating their infrastructure back into on-premises environments, perhaps because they understand it better and they find they can more reliably predict their costs there.
Deon Stroebel, chief innovation officer at cloud computing specialist LSD Open, argues against this move, saying that issues relating to cost and efficiency are better solved in the cloud than outside of it.
In this episode of TCS+, Stroebel delves into:
• The biggest mistakes companies make after migrating into the cloud;
• The real difference between just running an application on the cloud versus building it in a truly cloud-native way;
• The mindset shift that comes with cloud adoption and why on-premises thinking should not be applied in a cloud environment;
• How containerisation and DevOps help businesses make their cloud deployments more efficient;
• The cost and performance benefits of modernised cloud infrastructure;
• How to use observability tools to monitor cloud usage; and
• How ensuring their cloud environments prepare businesses to adopt new technologies like AI quickly.
This conversation is not to be missed! TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 23 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0200 0 0 TCS+ | LSD Open: why repatriating from the cloud can be a costly mistake 0 0 TechCentral full 21:07 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1600060 https://iono.fm/e/1600060 Some are going as far as repatriating their infrastructure back into on-premises environments, perhaps because they understand it better and they find they can more reliably predict their costs there.
Deon Stroebel, chief innovation officer at cloud computing specialist LSD Open, argues against this move, saying that issues relating to cost and efficiency are better solved in the cloud than outside of it.
In this episode of TCS+, Stroebel delves into:
• The biggest mistakes companies make after migrating into the cloud;
• The real difference between just running an application on the cloud versus building it in a truly cloud-native way;
• The mindset shift that comes with cloud adoption and why on-premises thinking should not be applied in a cloud environment;
• How containerisation and DevOps help businesses make their cloud deployments more efficient;
• The cost and performance benefits of modernised cloud infrastructure;
• How to use observability tools to monitor cloud usage; and
• How ensuring their cloud environments prepare businesses to adopt new technologies like AI quickly.
This conversation is not to be missed! ]]> Technology Tue, 23 Sep 2025 09:58:00 +0200 0 0 LSD Open: why repatriating from the cloud can be a costly mistake 0 0 TechCentral full 21:07 TCS+ https://iono.fm/e/1600042 https://iono.fm/e/1600042 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Nicolas Riemer, co-founder and CEO of The Invigilator, joins TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu to discuss how the start-up is going to use the cash injection to take on international markets.
He also gives insight into the app’s software and the company behind it.
In this episode, Riemer delves into:
• How The Invigilator app got started during the Covid-19 lockdown;
• The markets it plans to expand into internationally;
• The challenges of developing an app like The Invigilator in the South African market and why this may have set the company up for international success;
• How the app uses AI to minimise network and storage demands while improving outcomes;
• Barriers to The Invigilator’s adoption, like resistance from students, and how they were overcome; and
• The future technologies Riemer is most excited about in the ed-tech space.
Don’t miss the conversation! TechCentral]]> Technology Tue, 23 Sep 2025 09:19:00 +0200 0 0 TCS | From lockdown idea to global player: The Invigilator bags $11-million funding 0 0 TechCentral full 35:09 TechCentral (main feed) https://iono.fm/e/1600040 https://iono.fm/e/1600040 In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Nicolas Riemer, co-founder and CEO of The Invigilator, joins TechCentral’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu to discuss how the start-up is going to use the cash injection to take on international markets.
He also gives insight into the app’s software and the company behind it.
In this episode, Riemer delves into:
• How The Invigilator app got started during the Covid-19 lockdown;
• The markets it plans to expand into internationally;
• The challenges of developing an app like The Invigilator in the South African market and why this may have set the company up for international success;
• How the app uses AI to minimise network and storage demands while improving outcomes;
• Barriers to The Invigilator’s adoption, like resistance from students, and how they were overcome; and
• The future technologies Riemer is most excited about in the ed-tech space.
Don’t miss the conversation! ]]> Technology Tue, 23 Sep 2025 09:14:00 +0200 0 0 From lockdown idea to global player: The Invigilator bags $11-million funding 0 0 TechCentral full 35:09 TCS - The TechCentral Show