TCS+

Everyone agrees that small and medium enterprises are the backbone of the South African economy. But the reality on the ground tells a different story – too many small businesses are still running on spreadsheets and WhatsApp, locked out of the tools that could help them compete.

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

Most security teams can tell you what they've deployed. Far fewer can answer the board's next question: are we actually less exposed than we were three months ago?

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.

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.