Cisco and The Innovation Hub: creating solutions for Africa

Part of the Cisco team at the Hub Sharon Momberg, Facilities Assistant. Neels Du Plooy, Channel Account Manager. Margaret Matsaung, Receptionist.

Cisco Systems has moved its Pretoria office to the Hub, with a view to designing technology solutions specifically for Africa and the developing world.

According to Cisco's public sector account manager, Vaughan Baptiste, one of the key reasons for Cisco's involvement with the Hub is the fact that many technology solutions are based on global best practices, which are not necessarily relevant to the developing world. The company wants to transform such solutions to make them more Africa-centric.

"The Innovation Hub is close to CSIR and the University of Pretoria, enabling us to establish strong collaboration between academia, research, government and the technology industry. This means that we have players from four different fields coming together to build technology solutions that are contextual to Africa," he says.

"There are a number of areas in the technology arena where we don't have the correct solutions for Africa today. I believe that through a collaboration of this nature, where joint effort stimulates innovation, we will soon see technology solutions tailor-made for the African environment."

Referring to the Hub's position as one of the Blue IQ provincial initiatives with the specific aim of turning Gauteng into a truly 'smart province', he says that "Cisco's vision is to use our 'smart province', status to create a showcase for the rest of Africa to demonstrate how technology can bridge the digital divide by improving issues such as education and healthcare across the continent."

Hub CEO, Dr Neville Comins, welcomed Cisco as a new tenant at the Hub. He confirms that the Hub environment is exposing tenants to cutting edge technology and facilitating their interaction with global companies and their cutting edge facilities.

"We are keen to see continuous growth in the country's knowledge base, and agree with Cisco's view of treating the Hub as place where a certain amount of local development can take place," says Comins.

"This is particularly important when one looks at the strange mix that constitutes the SA market, one that effectively serves technology solutions into the third world from a base that is very much first world."

He points out that the Hub provides a perfect Beta site, allowing players to be exposed to the latest technologies that they can 'bend and break' first, before taking them out into the rest of the world. The deployment of Cisco's state-of-the-art High Availability campus networking, IP telephony and wireless infrastructure across the Hub, delivers a platform upon which much of the Beta testing and application development can be performed.

According to Baptiste, from a Cisco perspective, there are numerous benefits to being part of the Hub, particularly in view of its strong relationship with the City of Tshwane.

"We hope to leverage this relationship to assist Government in realising their Batho Pele service delivery vision - especially in terms of technology implementation for schools, libraries, local government offices and the like - as part of our contribution to the 'smart province' concept," he says.

Edrei Schoeman, Workplace Resources Manager of Cisco South Africa concludes by saying that "Cisco brings strategic value to the Hub while at the same time, our work here allows us to contribute towards social responsibility, so from either viewpoint it is crucial for us to be resident here".

For more information on Cisco Systems, contact Vaughan Baptiste on +27 12 844 7459.

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