Enterprise IT
WeThinkCode Expands Footprint in South Africa
Image sourced from WeThinkCode WeThinkCode is planning to expand its footprint across South Africa with the launch of a new campus in Durban. This is expected to give more South Africans the opportunity to join the digital world and help build the country’s technology skills capability. “We know that South Africa has a vast pool of untapped talent with the aptitude to be trained in technology. At the same time, our youth unemployment is among the highest in the world,” says WeThinkCode’s CEO, Nyari Samushonga. “Like any successful business, WeThinkCode is evolving and continually improving its operating model and this includes making our programmes accessible to more people. Geography plays an important role here as many candidates are unable to access our existing campuses. Hence ou...
How the ‘Broken Window’ Theory Affects Cybersecurity Matters
Stefan van de Giessen, General Manager: Cybersecurity at Networks Unlimited Africa Here at Networks Unlimited Africa, we are applying the ‘broken window’ principle when looking at our internal cybersecurity posture and how it affects business processes. The term ‘Broken window’ comes from George Kelling, a criminologist, who wrote in 1982 that, “social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken… vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers…are lowered by actions that seem to signal that ‘no one cares’.” This theory had also been the subject of experiments previously (1969) by a professor at Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo arranged to have a car w...
A New Business Offering for a New Business World
As the coronavirus pandemic has changed the world around us, organisations have had to adapt to a new, remote way of working, and in response, many have shifted to focus on cloud-first strategies. To streamline this transition, ESET has launched ESET PROTECT, to assist businesses in gaining centralised visibility, management and insights across the security of their endpoints. The ESET PROTECT platform is available either in the cloud to accommodate businesses looking for affordable and easy deployment, or on-premises for increased control. Save, save, save As some businesses find their budgets increasingly squeezed in the face of renewed lockdown restrictions, optimising the use of your money is even more necessary. It may be tempting to leave security aside but moving to the cloud can pr...
5 Steps to Secure a Work-From-Anywhere Environment
Sourced from TTEC.com When COVID-19 closed offices worldwide, it created a new urgency for organisations of all kinds and sizes — and particularly the CIOs, CISOs and IT leaders within them — to secure their remote work environments. As the need for remote work grew, so too did the threat landscape. For companies not born in the digital age, it was overwhelming to juggle their first cloud migration while conjuring overnight a new kind of security posture that met internet-scale levels of trust and performance. Where those businesses left gaps, often as a result of human error, cybercriminals were happy to exploit them. As we enter the next phase, one where “work-from-anywhere” environments are here to stay, let’s rewind, pause and remember that the secret to success is to do common things ...
Will Technology Reinvent ‘the New Normal’ in 2021?
2020 can only be described as an unpredictable year, and one that brought with it some of the most dramatic shifts we’ve seen in the way we live and work. In a year of uncertainty, it’s safe to say that technology was the one constant – the platform that transformed the fundamentals of commerce, healthcare, education and financial services across the world. Disruption is a process that plays out over time; sometimes slowly, but completely and the pandemic proved this to be true. It showed that it’s imperative for organisations to invest in a holistic and strategic approach to respond to the pace of disruption. This investment calls for the convergence of technologies, to connect, collaborate and create new services that will ultimately help weather disruption. As we head into 2021, the MER...
3 Cybersecurity Resolutions for Businesses in 2021
Sourced from IDG Connect Between more sophisticated cybercriminals and immense pressure to ensure governance on compliance, 2021 is already shaping up to be a minefield. And as such, cybersecurity has risen to the top of most organisations’ agendas. With this in mind, here are three cybersecurity resolutions every business should consider this year: Watch out – Dark Clouds are on the horizon Businesses haven’t been the only ones accelerating their digital transformation this year – cybercriminals have been hard at it too. There has been a sharp rise in ‘Dark Clouds’ as cybercriminals have migrated to the cloud, often for the same reasons businesses have – cloud allows them to avoid big up-front capital expenses, pay monthly for their shady businesses and scale up only when they need to. Co...
How Technology can Give Employees Access to their Wages
When Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivers the 2021 budget, he will do so fully cognizant that South Africans of all walks of life are being stretched – some beyond breaking point – as businesses take strain and some succumb to the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unemployment figure is alarming and unsustainable, and unless Mboweni and his team manage to implement meaningful stimulus to the formal economy, it is at risk of rising further. Sadly, millions in formal employment are not faring much better. PwC’s Financial Wellness Survey found that 89% of employees in the country were worried about paying off their loans and bills as of August last year. It would be a brave pundit to presume that figure would be lower in February 2021, just weeks after the traditionall...
How Technology can Give Employees Access to their Wages
When Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivers the 2021 budget, he will do so fully cognizant that South Africans of all walks of life are being stretched – some beyond breaking point – as businesses take strain and some succumb to the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unemployment figure is alarming and unsustainable, and unless Mboweni and his team manage to implement meaningful stimulus to the formal economy, it is at risk of rising further. Sadly, millions in formal employment are not faring much better. PwC’s Financial Wellness Survey found that 89% of employees in the country were worried about paying off their loans and bills as of August last year. It would be a brave pundit to presume that figure would be lower in February 2021, just weeks after the traditionall...
Backup the Physical Servers on your Network with Free Altaro Software
Risna Steenkamp, General Manager: ESM Division at Networks Unlimited Africa Companies and organisations with virtualised server environments often have physical machines too, and these also need data protection. Altaro has reacted to this need with the introduction of Altaro Physical Server Backup, a server backup software solution – with the added bonus that it’s free. Altaro is a leader in backup solutions for MSPs, IT resellers and IT departments, with its solutions distributed throughout Africa by value-added distributor Networks Unlimited Africa. Risna Steenkamp, General Manager: ESM Division at Networks Unlimited Africa, explains: “Businesses with virtual environments that have one or more physical machines or legacy servers that have not been virtualised can use Altaro P...
Why Facial Verification Is Key to Ending Facial Biometric Software Bias
As the global need for inclusive biometric security in facial identification increases, developers need not overlook the burden of a non-biased solution. Teki Akuetteh Falconer, from the African Digital Rights’ Hub, says racial profiling is a major concern in terms of facial identification software. This presents a challenge for Africa because if an individual’s identity cannot be reliably processed by both the public and private sectors, their ability to function in a digital society is hampered. The World Bank and the United Nations anticipate that by 2030 all Africans will have some form of digital identity which will prove critical when it comes to accessing essential services such as housing, schooling, healthcare and banking, to name a few. Gur Geva, Founder and CEO of iiDE...
The Shared Benefits of Connectivity Mean a Shared Effort of Providing It
As the need for connectivity becomes increasingly fundamental to our way of life, the need to deliver quality and cost-efficient connectivity and services by private communication services providers is of paramount importance. However, the cost of delivering quality services is relative to demand and use. Demand and volume of consumption of services play a significant role in determining the return profile of investments made by network operators in the infrastructure, platforms, product development and services that are required to deliver quality connectivity and digital services. While a lot of efforts have been made on the supply side, including policy, the licensing of new entrants and the release of spectrum, it requires equal or even more efforts on the demand side to enable the ado...
5 Trends Shaping the Technology Industry in 2021
2020 was a disruptive year for the tech industry – accelerating developments that may have taken 3 to 5 years to implement to common use almost overnight. Given these developments, here are five tech industry trends we’ll see within the next 11 months: WFH culture sets off a renewed focus on smart collaboration and office set-up of the future As companies examine the functionality of the workplace, we’ll start to see more traditional office workspaces become periodic collaboration hubs, while home offices become the day-to-day workplace. The office will likely transform from many desks, conference rooms and shared amenities to a cooperative business centre supporting specific project-based priorities on an ongoing basis. As a result, employers will need to equip their full workforce with t...
