TCS+

Access to stable, reliable, high-speed internet is crucial to participating in the modern economy. Although fibre connectivity offers the highest speeds and reliability, fibre penetration rates unfortunately remain relatively low in South Africa, leaving may would-be customers wanting.

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!

In this thought-provoking episode of TechCentral's TCS+, Mpho Chitapi sits down with Dr Josefin Rosén, principal trustworthy AI specialist in SAS's Data Ethics Practice and co-author of the influential report Constraint to Capability: Flipping the Narrative on AI in the Global South.

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!

Safety is a core concern for e-hailing operators as it ensures that platforms engender trust among drivers, passengers and the general public. Bolt recently commissioned market research firm Ipsos to conduct research into the perceptions of rider safety in South Africa's e-hailing market.

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.

The cloud revolution has challenged businesses of all sizes by changing how IT teams go about implementing projects and managing infrastructure. IT service firms have been doubly challenged, having to sell a new computing paradigm to their clients while also practising what they preach and adopting cloud-first technologies in-house.

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!

Cybersecurity is undergoing a quiet but important shift in South African boardrooms: from a defensive cost centre to a strategic business enabler. That was the central theme of a recent TechCentral TCS+ podcast discussion featuring Vodacom Business acting executive head for cloud security Lukhanyo Zahela and KnowBe4 Africa senior vice-president for content strategy Anna Collard.

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!