Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — “What is the plan before we get back to a stage where we are burying people?” When Belinda Tewela, a South African healthcare worker, took the microphone at the International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro, she did not speak about billion-dollar funding gaps or international policy. She spoke about…
Every shortcut a tech company takes is a loan. That’s the whole idea behind “technical debt”, a phrase programmer Ward Cunningham coined more than 30 years ago and the smartest bit of financial language software ever borrowed. In my last column, I argued that we sell products before we build them. This is what happens…
South Africa’s redrafted national AI policy will not prescribe rules to industry. Instead, individual sectors will be left to write their own AI strategies off a set of national guidelines. That is according to department of communications & digital technologies acting deputy director-general Jeanette Morwane, who told TechCentral on the sidelines of the inaugural Naspers/Prosus…
South African IT spending will grow 19.8% in 2026 to US$28.1-billion, more than five percentage points faster than the global figure, according to figures Gartner provided to TechCentral. The research firm does not publish a South African breakdown with its quarterly global releases. It supplied the local cut on request, following its worldwide forecast on…
The Pan-African Parliament’s east and west regional caucuses have tabled a motion calling for an urgent debate on the recent attacks against African migrants in South Africa. The motion was presented by West African regional caucus chairperson Lazare Yao Yao and seconded by East African regional caucus chairperson Danson Mungatana, who have urged the plenary…
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — For decades, South Africa has been at the epicentre of the global HIV epidemic. Today, it is becoming the testing ground for what many scientists believe could be the most important advance in HIV prevention since daily pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP): a twice-yearly injection that has shown almost complete protection against…
South Africa started processing undocumented migrants at a temporary repatriation centre in Musina, a border town with Zimbabwe, in July 2026. This followed weeks of intensified anti-migrant rhetoric and xenophobic violence. The facility has raised questions about whether the country could be moving towards a more camp-based approach to managing migrants and refugees. This would…
Endeavor South Africa MD Alison Collier For most of the past decade, a South African tech founder looking to sell had to hope a foreign buyer came knocking. That has changed – and it is the country’s banks doing the knocking. Newly released research by the SA SME Fund, Endeavor South Africa and industry body…
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) will convene its 46th Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government on 17 August 2026 at the Durban International Conference Centre in Durban City, Republic of South Africa. His Excellency Mr. Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa will host and chair the 46th SADC…
South Africa has, for the first time, formally earmarked the entire upper 6GHz band for mobile networks, handing operators a potential 700MHz of prime mid-band spectrum and settling – at least directionally – a global tug of war between the cellular industry and Wi-Fi advocates over the most valuable unassigned frequencies in telecommunications. The decision…
