In an unassuming house on a golf estate in Centurion, south of Pretoria, nearly 30 Dell desktop computers run 24 hours a day in a makeshift server room. The machines are crawling Web feeds of breaking news along with all of the text of the US Library of Congress. This is the home of technology
Johannesburg-based open-source software start-up Snapt < http://www.snapt-ui.com/> launched only in August 2011 but already it’s drawing interest from top drawer customers, mainly international clients, including the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration (Nasa). The company uses open-source software
Airborne launched in late December 2011, and is an online music service that gives SA (and international) music audiences a chance to support their favourite artists directly, by “subscribing” to their playlist for a dollar a month, and by encouraging fans to
Ikenna “Ike” Ouizo is the founder and CEO of TruSpot, a service he describes as the “Spotify for Africa”. Truspot, which offers Africa-specific content, is run out of Texas, but will move to its conceptual birthplace, Nigeria, later this month. The groundwork for TruSpot came in the
Cape Town-based start-up IMB’s tagline is “more than a bank”, and that’s because banking services are only a small part of what it offers. Its main focus is making payments, and particularly mobile payments, easier for consumers and merchants in a way it claims benefits
Two-month-old Cape Town start-up Quicket is taking the fight to SA’s dominant ticketing company Computicket by making it possible for companies and individuals to manage their own ticketing for an event and providing them with a database of all attendees
Cape Town-based start-up Guzzle hopes to become the go-to website for price comparisons in bricks-and-mortar stores. It thinks this will set it apart from other price aggregators that only compare deals from online retailers. Guzzle co-founder and director Ric Meulemans says the
Stellenbosch-based start-up Boom.fm is an online music discovery service that encourages group listening and looks set to make more South Africans familiar with a wider variety of local music. It’s also going to provide local artists with an additional
Short-term prepaid Internet access isn’t a new idea. After all, it’s been keeping Internet cafes in business since the early days of the Web. Prepaid Internet kiosks, meanwhile, although commonplace in Europe, haven’t taken off in SA. Johannesburg-based start-up Mykiosk
Hazyview, Mpumalanga-based Vincent Mabuza, 23, is a candidate attorney with a passion for technology. He’s started a service called Qooh.me that allows users to ask one another questions anonymously. Launched in May, the service is enjoying explosive growth and already
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