South Africa Archives - Page 11 of 30

22Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

South Africa News

South African Spending: How to keep the country saving

Did you know that the country’s national savings rate jumped from 14.2% in December 2020 to 18% in the first quarter of this year – the highest it has been since 2010 [i]? According to the South African Reserve Bank, this is a reflection of household spending patterns amid the uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic. Hennie Blignaut, Account Executive at Pay@ - a leading payment aggregator and provider of secure payment solutions - notes that this trend towards saving has also been echoed in debt repayments and insurance premium payment volumes, with the former spiking by 58% and the latter by 83% over the past 12 months. He unpacks some of the reasons behind these increases and shares how South Africans can keep saving: For many, pandemic-induced lockdowns led to salary reductions at ...

22Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Real Estate, South Africa News

Low interest rates fueling property buying boom: Finder.com’s economist panel

59% of panellists say the property buying boom will last for at least another year 54% say the boom is negatively impacting the rental market 97% say the SARB will hold the repo rate this week South Africa’s property buying boom isn’t going to slow down anytime soon, according to Finder.com’s SARB repo rate forecast report. 59% of Finder’s panel say the boom will sustain itself for at least another year, with 30% saying the trend will continue until the end of 2022 and 29% saying it will last even longer. Meanwhile, just two panellists (7%) think the market will slow down by November. Alexander Forbes chief economist Isaah Mhlanga thinks the boom will last for another year due to the historically low repo rate. “House prices have declined during the pandemic and due to the re...

22Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Main, South Africa News

Modernisation means more than simple mechanisation – it means people

By Arjen de Bruin, MD at OIM Consulting The latest figures from Statistics South Africa have revealed that in July 2021, there was a 10.3% year on year increase in mining production, which it has attributed to higher commodity prices and the recovery in the global economy. And while the sector appears to be on an upward trajectory after a crippling hard lockdown last year, the mining industry’s adoption of mechanisation and digitisation has also been attributed as having played a role in this renaissance. There’s no denying that the mining industry is a significant contributor to South Africa’s economy, with local mineral reserves boasting an estimated value of around $2.5 trillion (Mining Weekly 2016). It also plays a crucial role in creating employment within the country’s communities...

19Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

South Africa News, Tech

Remote work a win for SA ICT professionals

The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it some unexpected benefits for the South African ICT sector, including increased productivity and the potential for employers to reduce their operating costs. This is one of the findings in the first South African ICT Skills Survey to be carried out since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic by Wits University’s Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) in partnership with the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA). The JCSE-IITPSA ICT Skills Survey assesses skills demand and supply from both a corporate and practitioner perspective, to identify the most pressing skills needs and current skills capacity. The 2021 edition of the survey also set out to assess the impact the pandemic has had on ICT skills in South Africa...

17Sep

By Shai ReshefNo Comments

Science, South Africa News

Fewer barriers, more opportunities: University of the People is disrupting the traditional higher educational model in South Africa

By: Shai Reshef, President of the University of the People (UoPeople) University of the People (UoPeople) launched an Education Revolution in 2009 that has exploded in recent years to become the fastest-growing online university in the world. UoPeople’s innovative tuition-free model of higher education is quickly gaining momentum among South African students looking at cost-effective ways to earn a degree from an accredited and respected university. UoPeople President Shai Reshef says embracing a disruptive educational model is necessary to make quality higher education accessible, affordable, and empowering for more people. The Covid-19 pandemic and other events over the past 18 months have accelerated existing trends at speeds few could’ve anticipated. Traditional institutions a...

17Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

South Africa News, Startups

Innovative Ideas for a Smart Stellenbosch: Nominations open for the second annual #IdeasForChange Challenge

With steady population growth and rapid urbanisation in the Cape Winelands expected to put severe pressure on the district’s public services[i], Stellenbosch Network has opened nominations for its second annual #IdeasForChange Challenge. In doing so, the organisation invites all people living, working or studying in Stellenbosch and surrounds to submit their innovative ideas towards making Stellenbosch a “Smarter City” and stand the chance to win their share of R20,000 in cash prizes and more to bring their idea to life. Run in partnership with Stellenbosch University and the SU LaunchLab, the competition seeks to uncover creative, innovative and scalable ideas to improve municipal decision-making and the quality of life of citizens. These ideas must utilise data and technology, but can s...

17Sep

By Sir Ian CheshireNo Comments

Business, Main, Medicine, South Africa News

Collaborating for the benefit of employee mental health

Sir Ian Cheshire Chair, The Global Business Collaboration for Better Workplace Mental Health Before the Covid 19 pandemic hit, mental health was already an issue on the rise around the world, with an estimated 13% of the global population, just short of 1 billion people suffering from some kind of mental illness. In South Africa, according to statistics released by the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), as many as one in six South Africans suffer from anxiety or depression. The pandemic experience has put additional pressure on the mental health of millions of people. This pressure has been felt in workplaces across the world in numerous ways, from the need to support employees with what they are dealing with outside of work to managing new and different ways of working...

17Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Medicine, South Africa News

Vaccine production in Africa key to pandemic-proofing the Continent

The unprecedented speed of development of the Covid-19 vaccines can be attributed to multiple factors including record levels of international collaboration and swift action on the part of many governments and regulatory bodies to provide a conducive framework. As every nation across the globe faced impending economic doom, massive cross-sector funding materialised, allowing large-scale phased trials to be performed in parallel (multiple phases run simultaneously). The accumulation of knowledge from decades of study on related viruses, including research which started after the SARS outbreaks of 2002 -2004, and the advent of mRNA-based vaccine technology further assisted in ensuring a swift response to halting the spread of the deadly virus. The potential for factors that ena...

17Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Fintech, South Africa News

Your immediate response to prevent banking fraud

If you are like any normal South Africa, you approach intersections labelled high crime or high smash and grab zone with an overabundance of caution and the same applies to any intersection where there are a lot of people loitering around your vehicle. The last thing you want is to become a victim of a crime of opportunity, Close to 41% of the South African population has a smartphone. With Government encouraging the public to practice social distancing, online banking platforms have become extremely popular. Criminals are aware of this and reports from the South African Police Service point out that when it comes to crimes of opportunity (i.e.: smash and grab) criminals press their victims for their online banking password before making off with the phone. “This creates a situation ...

12Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Medicine, South Africa News, Tech

Tech Tools Could Streamline SA’s Vaccine Rollout

Did you know that over three billion messages related to COVID-19 have been sent by governments, non-profits and international organisations to citizens via official WhatsApp chatbots[i]? The South African government was one of the first to harness the power of the platform to share correct, up-to-date COVID-19 information from the National Department of Health, but Kyle Oosthuizen (@KyleOosthuizen), Chief Operating Officer at Blue Robot, the leading provider of socially powered messaging solutions, believes that it – and other tech tools - could be utilised for far more, especially now that vaccines are being opened up to younger generations. He says that while the WhatsApp chatbot is slightly more convenient than government’s COVID-19 resource and news portal, it isn’t adding any new va...