TCS | How South Africa's Milkor became a global player in drone innovation
A company with its headquarters in Pretoria has designed and built an advanced drone that can attain speeds of 250km/h, reach altitudes of up to 30 000ft and travel more than 4 000km before having to return to its base.
The company, Milkor, is a South African defence equipment and cybersecurity specialist that was founded all the way back in 1981.
Its newly developed Milkor 380 System unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – in essence, a giant drone – has a cruising altitude of 10 000ft, a wingspan of 18m and a maximum payload of 220kg.
The drone has a flight time of up to 35 hours and can be used for border surveillance, maritime surveillance, strategic reconnaissance and information gathering operations, among other things.
To talk about the UAV, Milkor communications director Daniel du Plessis sat down with Duncan McLeod on the TechCentral Show recently and shared more details about its capabilities.
Other than the Milkor 380, the interview also covers topics including:
* Milkor’s founding in the 1980s, and how the company shifted focus in the democratic era – it got its start, and may still be best known for, manufacturing the world’s first six-shot 40mm grenade launcher, which is widely used around the world;
* The company’s other products – for land, air and sea operations – as well as what’s involved in conducting advanced R&D and manufacturing in a market like South Africa;
* The people who work for Milkor, and the sort of skills the company is looking for (and how it’s finding them);
* The role of UAVs in modern warfare and defence operations; and
* Why Milkor has entered the cybersecurity space.
Don’t miss a fascinating interview!
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59:19
Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner on tech, AI and the future of banking
Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner believes technology is fundamental to the company’s success.
Kallner, an actuary who joined Discovery in its early days as a medical insurance company and who has held various senior leadership roles over the years, tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the group’s decision to launch a bank when it did. He shares how the business is doing – spoiler: it’s trending well ahead of schedule – and what comes next.
He tells the TechCentral Show about:
• How Discovery Bank is doing financially and how it’s tracking against its business plan;
• Its client base – who they are and who the bank is targeting as its clientele (the answer may surprise you);
• Why Discovery launched a bank into what was already a competitive market and what it’s doing differently to its rivals to attract people to switch;
• The learnings from Discovery Health and Discovery Vitality, and how Discovery Bank has leveraged these in its products and services;
• Discovery Bank’s technology stack, why it chose the IT solutions it did, and why it built much of its banking solution in-house;
• What’s next from Discovery Bank in terms of solutions; and
• The bank’s plans with AI – and why it believes AI could be a gamechanger.
Lastly, Kallner, a prolific reader, shares two of his favourite non-fiction books with the TechCentral audience.
Don’t miss a great discussion!
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37:06
TCS | Across South Africa in an EV: how one man did it before charging stations
Shaun Maidment crossed South Africa in an electric car, a BMW i3, before there was a network of charging infrastructure along the national routes – and he has a heck of a story to tell about his adventure.
Charging infrastructure along South Africa’s national routes is now so commonplace that a cross-country trip in an EV is a daily occurrence.
But this was not always the case, and drivers in the early days of EVs in South Africa often had to rely on their wits and the kindness of strangers to keep their batteries charged on long-distance trips.
Maidment is one of South Africa’s original EV enthusiasts.
As the proud owner of what was once officially recognised as the highest-mileage BMW i3 in Africa – it now has 365 000km on the clock – he dared to travel across the length and breadth of South Africa long before charging infrastructure was commonplace.
Maidment tells the TechCentral Show’s Nkosinathi Ndlovu about:
• What inspired him in 2017 to take his first drive from Johannesburg to Cape Town in an EV;
• How he planned the trip, knowing that at the time there were not enough charging stations along the way;
• Some anecdotes from his travels, including the interesting people he met along the way;
• What his travels have taught him about the best way to drive an EV;
• How much mileage he is getting out of his i3 compared to when it was new; and
• His thoughts on the future of electric mobility in South Africa.
Maidment’s insights on EVs are based on years of personal experience. This episode of the show is not to be missed.
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40:35
Why the CompCom wants Google to pay up
The Competition Commission is girding itself for a fight with Big Tech companies like Google and Meta Platforms after publishing its provisional findings in its investigation into the impact that Big Tech has had on the South African news media sector.
To unpack the provisional report, which was published on Monday, Competition Commission senior analyst and technical lead Donnavan-John Linley joined the TechCentral Show to discuss on the findings.
He chats about how the commission is attempting to assist local publishers deal with the rise of competing social media platforms owned by US tech giants and why the regulator is determined to intervene in the market to support the funding of journalism in South Africa in the digital age.
Linley tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about:
• Why the Competition Commission decided to initiate its probe into digital platforms and their impact these platforms are having on South Africa’s news media;
• The findings contained in the provisional report and why the commission reached the conclusions it did – including its recommendation that Google pay as much as R500-million/year in “compensation” over a three- to five-year period in an effort to level the playing field;
• The likely reaction from Big Tech to the commission’s proposals, and what might happen if they don’t agree to play ball;
• The risk of provoking a backlash from the Donald Trump administration – already Trump has accused the EU of using antitrust fines levied on US tech companies as a form of taxation and threatened retaliation in response;
• How the proposed compensation of the local news media might work, and who would be eligible to receive the funding from Google;
• The impact of artificial intelligence on the South African media industry and how the commission has dealt with this in its provisional report; and
• Whether the commission’s findings amount to regulatory overreach – are the proposals it has made really warranted, or is the media industry simply experiencing capitalism’s “creative destruction” that will ultimately drive innovation in news media?
Don’t miss a great interview!
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23:38
New player in township fibre market offers 100Mbit/s for R9/day
South Africa has a new player chasing the township fibre broadband market: Wire-Wire Networks has deployed fibre to 15 800 homes in Thembisa (previously Tembisa), a sprawling township in central Gauteng.
CEO JP Schmidtke joined the TechCentral Show earlier this week to share exclusive details about the company’s growth plans and to talk about the business opportunity for fibre companies in South Africa’s vast township economy.
Schmidtke said Wire-Wire Networks – like other industry players such as Vumatel, Fibertime and Frogfoot – believes townships present the next big expansion opportunity for fibre network operators, though the business model is rather different to the one used to deploy infrastructure in the suburbs.
Wire-Wire is offering uncapped fibre – delivered over a meshed Wi-Fi network from fibre endpoints in each home or dwelling, starting at R5 for an hour of uncapped internet access at 100Mbit/s (limited to a single device). Other price plans, which are all uncapped and offer 100Mbit/s, include:
• R9 for a one-day plan that connects one device
• R39 for a one-week plan that connects one device
• R119 for a one-month plan that connects one device
• R449 for a one-month plan that supports eight devices
• R1 120 for a one-month plan that supports 12 devices
Subscribers can connect anywhere in Thembisa where Wire-Wire has coverage and so are not confined to connecting to the network in the vicinity of their own homes.
There are no contracts or connection charges, and Wire-Wire provides a “free-to-use” Wi-Fi router and UPS (designed to keep the internet working even during load shedding and other power outages). The fibre is trenched, not delivered aerially, as it the case in many township deployments.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Schmidtke unpacks how Wire-Wire was formed, talks about its future plans and explains how it hopes to make low-cost fibre broadband profitable in township settings.
Wire-Wire’s leadership team consists of Schmidtke as well as fibre industry expert Hendrik Opperman, head of projects (external) Succeed Bvuma, head of technical David Radebe and head of projects (internal) Susan Hattingh.
Don’t miss the discussion!
The TechCentral Show (TCS, for short) is a tech show produced by South Africa's leading technology news platform. It features interviews with newsmakers, ICT industry leaders and other interesting people.
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