As the thread title suggest - a place to consolidate news and information regarding various ICT projects in the Cape.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3480/3895495505_275723ff61_o.jpg
Cable works.
Coda @ flickr.com

^^ I take it this is the fibre optic work being done

It is indeed.

Pigeon beats Telkom

2009-09-09 12:23


Birgit Ottermann

Cape Town - Winston, a homing pigeon, has made history by beating a Telkom ADSL line in delivering 4GB of data from Howick to Hillcrest, outside Durban in just 2 hours 6 minutes and 57 seconds, whereas the ADSL download was "still just under four percent complete" at 11:45.

The rest of the story...(News24) (http://www.news24.com/Content/SciTech/News/1132/1bc8b09e39b043928317dc769d4196e4/09-09-2009-12-23/Pigeon_beats_Telkom)

Google looks to Cape for tech innovation

Google announced today that its Africa technology incubator, called Umbono, would be located in Cape Town.

A statement issued by the US-based search engine giant said this decision was based on its ongoing commitment to foster innovation in Africa.
Technology incubators are groupings of small start-up high-technology companies, usually funded by either one large investor or by numerous smaller funds to help these fledgling enterprises through the first difficult years of their development.
"News that Google has decided on Cape Town is a feather in the cap of the Western Cape, which has been positioning itself as the best place for technology start-ups," said Jeny McKinell, executive director of the Cape IT Initiative, a private/public technology incubator.
McKinell said the Cape IT Initiative, along with private technology investment group Silicon Cape, had been lobbying Google to locate its new venture in the Mother City for about a year.
Google said that the idea of its incubator was to bring together seed capital, Google mentorship, angel investors, local technology stars, entrepreneurs and business leaders. "The Umbono programme will help selected start-up teams transform their ideas into companies."
It goes on to say that, as part of its goal to strengthen the web ecosystem across Africa, Google hopes that Umbono will further encourage the growth of the developer community and support the country's already flourishing tech sector.
"The South African tech scene is incredibly dynamic, particularly in Cape Town," said Luke McKend, the country manager for Google South Africa. "We've seen some terrific start-ups come from this environment, companies like Yola, MXit and Twangoo. Google's latest investment with Umbono is a great extension of our overall strategy in the region to strengthen the web ecosystem."
Part of the Google innovator support model will see selected technology start-ups enjoy free office space and bandwidth, in addition to the $25,000 to $50,000 (about R175,000 to R350,000) in funding they'll receive from Umbono's panel of angel investors and Google for six months.
Google said that, throughout the programme, teams would not only benefit from local connections, but also from the extensive mentorship network of Google experts who could provide guidance on issues ranging from product design and commercialisation, to legal incorporation and valuation.
"Our mentor base is a key component of the Umbono programme," said Johanna Kollar, Umbono's programme manager. "Our experts - Googlers from around the world who are volunteering their time - are passionate about technology in Africa and will be able to help teams with the challenges they face, whether it be on the product, business or technical front."
Applications will go live on the Umbono website from March 22, and the programme is open to all South African residents. The deadline for first-round applicants is April 15, but the website will continue to accept applications from interested candidates.

Weird how ICASA approves so few radio stations... :nuts:

All 'Smiles' as new FM station airs in Cape Town

In the latest instalment of her "Backstory" series, Gill Moodie writes exclusively for journalism.co.za:

Today Smile 90.4fm – Cape Town’s new FM radio station – started broadcasting.

Backed by SA’s pre-eminent film producer Anant Singh, Smile 90.4fm won the first FM licence to be awarded by the regulator, Icasa, for Cape Town in 14 years.

It was a successful applicant amid a group that also saw Richtrau – a consortium led by Given Mkhari’s MSG Afrika Investment Holdings – get the licence for Power 98.9FM in Johannesburg.There was also the Durban-based One Gospel,for which the licence is held by KNI –a consortium led by Revered Abe Sibiya who also heads the One Gospel satellite TV station.

Power FM’s station manager, Ferdinand Mabalane, told Journalism.co.za last week that preparations were afoot for switch-on this year but he did not want to commit to a launch date while Sibiya did not respond to requests for information about One Gospel.

It does not appear that the station is on the air yet.

Last year Sibiya told Journalism.co.za that he was pushing to launch the radio station in June if all went well.

Smile 90.4fm – which held its official launch in Cape Town last week – will be unique in that it will be completely bilingual – going out in 50% Afrikaans and English and with a mix of music and talk. Half of the music will be local.

It has won a 10-year licence, which MD Tony Mallam told Journalism.co.za was quite surprising.

Mallam, who has worked for the SABC and was a shareholder in and financial director of Kfm – said: “My first licence with Kfm was for six years and when we got the paper work for this one, it was for 10 years. We checked with Icasa and they felt it was a mission to renew every six years.”

In its application, the station’s funding target was R36-million.

“We’re aiming to better that. We’re aiming to use less than that,” Mallam said. “The better we do advertising-wise, the less the shareholders will have to put in. It’s a three-year break-even. That’s our target financially.”

Mallam said that some competitors in the licence-application process were aiming for a one-year break-even target – a time frame he did not think was realistic.

“It’s a big financial investment, which is why we’re very glad to have the likes of (Singh’s) Videovision on board,” he said.

Singh, who joined the radio bid in 2009 before Smile successfully won the FM licence, is co-chairman of the board with Dr Ernest Messina, who is also chairman of the Groot Constantia Trust.

The Durban-based Singh is not new to the radio industry or the Cape Town business scene.

He is also the main driver behind Cape Town Film Studios while Videovision and Kagiso Trust Investments acquired the former SABC radio stations, Radio Oranje (OFM) and East Coast Radio, in 1996. This led to the formation of the JSE-listed Kagiso Media.

Singh was a board member of Eastcoast Radio, OFM and Kagiso Media until he resigned these directorships in 2006.

Smile’s investors comprise Videovision; Women’s Development Bank Investment Holdings; Allparts Cape; African Peoples Investment Company; and Radio 021.

Although the station has blue-chip investors such as Singh, it began as a small independent consortium founded in 2008 by Lizma van Zyl, who came up with the idea of a bilingual station in conversation with Ton Vosloo, the chairman of Naspers.

Vosloo – who Mallam described as a “moral supporter” of the station – was at Smile’s launch last week.

Van Zyl, who has worked in broadcasting – including the SABC, Kfm and e.tv - for more than 20 years is Smile’s content head while another veteran broadcaster, Clive Ridgway, is the station’s programme director.

Ridgway was Kfm’s head of programming for many years.

Many of Smile’s presenters – who include Bobby Brown, Benito Vergotine and Eloise Pretorius – came on board at less than they were earning before, Mallam said.

“We have been very conservative when it comes to finances. I’ve worked in venture capital and entrepreneurial businesses and the one thing about bootstrapping a company is that you have to be very lean and you have to grow into yourself. So even though it looks like we’ve got this huge talent, we’ve been very conservative about what we’re paying people. They are aware of the potential of the business and they’ve joined us with an upside in mind.”

Mallam said Smile would be spending a lot on marketing – with billboards, bus-shelter ads and print adverts in the works – to get it known among listeners as fast as possible but would also be using social networks.

“Again, it has to be clever use of money,” he said. “Shareholder funding is not a bottomless pit.”

Mallam forsees that the station will be competing against the big three Cape Town stations – Kfm, Heart and Good Hope – but also against successful community stations such as Voice of the Cape and Radio Tygerberg, both of which have gained Afrikaans listeners in the past two years.

“Overall, I think we will fragment the market,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it because… I think we’ll take a little bit from everyone.

“Our biggest challenge is to literally get people tuned in because when they do, they will love us and they will talk about it to their friends so there will be word of mouth and social media,” said Mallam. “The challenge is to draw the core of our audience in the first six months. It’s not about gradual growth. This is about making a big impact and then growing from there.

“Gone are the days when you launch quietly and grow steadily. People’s consumption of media these days is governed by a short focus of attention so you’ve got to grab them now. We’ve got to be a talking point in Cape Town. We want people saying: ‘Did you hear this on Smile 90.4? Did you hear what the guy said this morning on Smile 90.4?’ ”

Source: Journalism.co.za (http://www.journalism.co.za/index.php/news-and-insight/insight/170-backstory/5285-all-smiles-as-new-fm-station-airs-in-cape-town.html)

^^ I want a really, really good music radio station with less talk. Something between a VH1-original and MTV mix. Sometimes 5fm can be single-minded in some of their music selection and Kfm, in my opinion, is abysmal. Abysmal by comparison to their Primedia cousin, Highveld Stereo in Johannesburg.

Great... but not really interested in another talk-bilingual-local-focus radio station. But hey, that's the youth talking. ;)

Agreed. I honestly couldn't be bothered about the opinions of DJ's on various matters. I want to listen to music when I turn on the radio.

5FM is OK, but there's far too much talk. Their music selection is quite diverse, but that often leaves me frustrated by some of the most atrociously repetitive rap I've had the displeasure of hearing.

KFM is, quite simply, terrible in terms of their music choices. They're masters at killing songs by overplaying them, they seem to stick to Top 40 and oldies, but even their Top 40 seems to be behind the rest of the world by a few weeks. They also make some strange choices when it comes to filler songs. You'd swear There's Gotta Be More to Life by Stacie Orrico were released yesterday at the rate they play it.

If only we had a decent rock-focussed radio station that focussed on the music more than the chatter :( It seems the only think closest to it is AFM 91.3FM, but I can't say I'm a fan of the more experimental Afrikaans choices :lol: