ICT

Many companies choose Gauteng for their headquarters.

Hytera has created a new regional headquarters in Johannesburg, the company’s biggest facility in Africa.

Listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and with its global headquarters in that Chinese city, Hytera is a communications technologies company that has been in Southern Africa for two decades.

The new Midrand headquarters include a demonstration area, pictured, and indicate the company’s intention of expanding the range of voice, video and data capabilities on offer to its African clients. New products are expected to be launched at the Africa Tech Festival in November.

With several other global companies choosing to station their South African headquarters in Gauteng, the province is well connected.

The biggest data centre on African soil is under construction in Ekurhuleni. Teraco Data Environments secured a R2.5-billion loan in 2021 to build the 50 000m² JB4 data centre on 6ha and Phase 1 has been completed. The centre will have 38MW of critical power load. The company has five other centres, two of which are in Gauteng. Johannesburg is also one of two South African cities to host a Microsoft Azure data centre.

A Gauteng Growth and Development Agency (GGDA) subsidiary, The Innovation Hub, has a programme called eKasiLabs which supports entrepreneurs and young people with good business ideas.

One of the provincial government’s stated goals is to get several ICT initiatives to work together. If the work of The Innovation Hub, several eKasi laboratories, the Tshimologong precinct, universities and research institutes could be integrated, a more powerful ecosystem would be the result.

A High-Tech Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is another idea that is being pursued. Making broadband connectivity and free WiFi available to poor households in the province is another task.

A Digital Transformation Advisory Panel is driving these initiatives. Various large spatial plans for the province include an element whereby these new cities or settlements will be built as “smart cities”.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria hosts a new body aimed at preparing South Africa for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the South African Affiliate Centre of the World Economic Forum.

Online Resources

eKasiLabs: www.theinnovationhub.com

Independent Communications Authority: www.icasa.org.za Technology Innovation Agency: www.tia.org.za

Sector Insight

Tshwane has hundreds of free WiFi zones.

The “Tshepo 1 Million” campaign links the provincial government with the successful Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator and more than 40 large companies.

Both Johannesburg and Tshwane have free WiFi networks with Tshwane providing 1GB of data every day to its citizens at various TshWi-Fi locations, at speeds up to 15Mbps.

The Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) runs the SoftstartBTI ICT incubator in Midrand and Tuksnovation, a high-tech incubator, at Pretoria University. Several incentives relevant to companies and educational bodies in the ICT sector are available from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic). ■