Jane, an academic staff member of a university based in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, had been involved in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) research for many years. Jane wanted to apply for academic promotion to an Associate Professor position at her institution.
Antoinette Lombard, Director of the e-skills unit at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT), had initiated a skills development and employee engagement project for the Human Resource (HR) Department through offering an e-skills and e-literacy course to the service workers of the University. Service workers included cleaning, gardening, maintenance and electrical workers. After a reasonably …
Dr. ZW Saul, the Head of the Department of African Languages at the University of Fort Hare, was considering the future of a text-to-speech system that converted English text into isiXhosa audio. The system had experienced a successful pilot, but much work remained to be done in taking the project to full implementation and sustainability.
Adele Botha, a project manager in the Information Communication and Technology for Rural Education Development (ICT4RED) initiative in South Africa, pondered on what to do with the Twitter and Whatsapp data that had been secured over the course of the study. The data consisted of communication between people at the implementation sites and management of …
Dr. Jackie Phahlamohlaka reflected on what he would propose to the board regarding the transformation of the existing Siyabuswa Educational Improvement and Development Trust (SEIDET) community centre to a smart community centre.
The Wikyo Akala Project (WAP) was a cooperative set up as a social enterprise that sought to pool the efforts of the sandal makers in the Korogocho area, Nairobi, Kenya, in order to improve their sales revenue using the internet platform. WAP struggled to survive as a “bricks-and-mortar” social enterprise in the first six years …
Masana Twala and Emily Brown, the co-founders of ME Data Services (MEDS), believed they had identified an excellent opportunity in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) domain. They were excited to set their idea in motion and, as many technology services entrepreneurs do, they feared that if they did not act promptly they could lose this …
Tshepo Manaka, an analyst programmer in the integration team at Woolworths Holdings, South Africa, was responsible for development and configuration of the DataPower appliance. The DataPower appliance was used for integration of data between Woolworths South Africa and external units; it worked as a multi-protocol gateway.
Mr. Berlin Msiska, the CEO for the Zambia Revenue Authority (Tax Administration), was wondering how return on investment (ROI) might be used to assess investments in ICT intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the country’s tax system. The critical decision being faced was “How can the ROI of tax systems be computed and …
Colin Thakur, an expert researcher for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of South Africa, ruminated on the recommendation he would make to that committee. The IEC had commissioned him to undertake a neutral comprehensive international study of e-voting implementations and experimentation. His goal was then to advise whether South Africa was in a position to …