TCS - The TechCentral Show
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.
Kiaan Pillay on fintech start-up Stitch and its R1-billion funding round
Cape Town-based fintech start-up Stitch last month caught the attention of many people when it announced it was raising R1-billion (US$55-million) in a significant series-B funding round. Co-founder and CEO Kiaan Pillay is our guest in this episode of the TechCentral Show, where he tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about…
How Covid sparked a corporate tug-of-war over Adapt IT
Shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Tiffany Dunsdon – at the time CEO of JSE-listed Adapt IT – found herself having to fend off an unwanted takeover bid from Huge Group. Dunsdon did not feel the deal made much sense for Adapt IT – a fast-growing enterprise software services provider…
From fibre to clean tech: Khudu Pitje on New GX Capital’s next chapter
New GX Capital, one of the principal investors in Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa parent CIVH, recently announced it was launching a R2.4-billion clean-tech investment fund in partnership with RMB Ventures. To unpack the details of the new fund and why it’s being established, New GX Capital founder and CEO…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Zimi Charge CEO Michael Maas on electrifying SA's logistics fleets
South African logistics firm Bakers SA recently deployed the first electric trucks to its fleet of more than a thousand vehicles. Working with Stellenbosch-based EV charging and software company Zimi Charge, Bakers’ deployment points a potential future in South Africa in which planet-warming trucks are replaced with electric alternatives. Michael…
Deep impact: Dean Furman on the implications of China's DeepSeek
China’s DeepSeek rocked US technology stocks last month after the company appeared to have developed an artificial intelligence model akin to OpenAI’s most advanced ChatGPT models at a tiny fraction of the cost. Stocks like Nvidia, Google and Microsoft cratered on the news as it raised serious questions about whether…
We test drive South Africa’s cheapest electric car
We strongly recommend watching the video version of this episode of TCS. -- Enviro Automotive has launched South Africa’s most affordable electric car yet, the Dayun S5 Mini SUV – and TechCentral has taken the vehicle for a test drive. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, we are joined…
'Activist CEO' Adam Craker on iqbusiness, the GNU and fixing Joburg
Adam Craker has strong views on what’s needed to turn around South Africa’s fortunes and fix its biggest city, Johannesburg, which has fallen into a state of disrepair. The CEO of iqbusiness, a digital integrator in the Reunert stable formed recently though the merger of IQbusiness and +OneX, is our…
Meet the team behind Matric Live, South Africa’s App of the Year
Matric Live is a study tool to help students in grades 10-12 supplement their in-class learning with additional exercises – and even get exam practice via a digital platform. And it recently won the FNB App of the Year award amid stiff competition from the likes of Checkers Sixty60 and…
Springboks rugby deal: the tech plan behind the audacious bid
Well-known South African technology entrepreneur Stafford Masie is one of the key backers behind an audacious bid to buy a stake of up to 40% in the South African Rugby Union (Saru)-owned entity that owns the commercial rights to the Springboks brand. Masie, who chairs JSE-listed Altvest Capital – a…
Reserve Bank’s big payments shake-up – an interview with Tim Masela
The South African Reserve Bank is working with its peers in the Southern African region to drive financial inclusion by digitising cash and making instant payments across borders an everyday reality. In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Tim Masela, head of the National Payments System department at the…
Datafree’s plan to make R1-billion/year from ‘free data’
Datafree Technologies, the company behind popular zero-rated messaging tool MoyaApp, has an ambitious plan to build a R1-billion/year business by tapping to the APN market provided by the mobile operators. In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Datafree chief commercial officer Kruben Pillay tells Duncan McLeod about the company’s…
The story of Telviva, with David Meintjes and Rob Lith
The world of telephony might not be particularly sexy, but it is an industry that has changed fundamentally in the past 20 years. And David Meintjes and Rob Lith of Telviva, a South African company specialising in cloud-based unified communications solutions for businesses, has been at the forefront of the…
Andrew Middleton on the state of rooftop solar in South Africa
South Africa’s rooftop solar installation industry has a bright future and is on track for its second-best year on record, despite the suspension of load shedding in March. That’s according to Andrew Middleton, co-founder and CEO of GoSolr, one of South Africa’s largest rooftop solar installation companies, who spoke to…
Sandile Dube on Equinix and South Africa’s data centre boom
Nasdaq-listed Equinix has completed construction of the first phase of a new data centre in Johannesburg, part of a R7.5-billion commitment to building cloud infrastructure in South Africa and the rest of the continent over the next five years. The company’s South African MD, Sandile Dube – a former country…
Lesaka’s Lincoln Mali on the fintech opportunity in South Africa
Lincoln Mali has been at the helm of Lesaka Technologies Southern Africa, a fintech with a sizeable footprint in Southern Africa’s informal markets, since 2021. One of his main tasks has been to turn the company’s finances around by reigning in business units that were haemorrhaging cash in the past…