ICOZA commits support for SANGONeT`s NGO.ZA initiative

A joint venture between ICOZA and SANGONeT, the NGO.ZA initiative, is centred on the delivery of accessible and affordable ICT services to civil society.

During the past few months, SANGONeT and ICOZA, a black economic empowerment (BEE) tier one Internet service provider (ISP), have conceptualised an innovative joint venture aimed at providing the South African NGO sector with a wide range of affordable ICT solutions (such as connectivity, Web solutions, security, hosting, hardware, etc). This important new initiative will be officially launched at the World Information Development Day event, hosted by SANGONeT.

This new initiative - NGO.ZA - is a joint venture between SANGONeT and ICOZA, SA`s first independently empowered tier 1 Internet service provider (ISP). ICOZA offers a complete range of Internet and value-added services to support clients` connectivity and e-business infrastructure in a close collaboration between the J&J Group and SA`s leading Internet services provider, Internet Solutions.

"ICOZA feels it can make an invaluable contribution to our civil society by contributing to the provision of easy and affordable access to essential connectivity services. The NGO sector and community-based organisations are hard pressed to demonstrate capacity building and deliver on their commitments to the upliftment of the community through a broad range of initiatives. ICOZA is committed in supporting these endeavours through its skills base and unique position as a BEE tier one ISP in SA," says Rodney de Koch, CEO of ICOZA.

"We have come a long way in a very short space of time since our inception nearly two years ago, thanks to the support from, and partnership with Internet Solutions, SA`s leading Internet services provider. We feel we want to give something back to the community and have embraced the NGO.ZA initiative with SANGONeT to ensure that a broad range of skills and services are now available to NGOs and CBOs. We envisage providing further exciting offerings to this community in the near future as the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector unfolds in the coming year," says De Koch.

In view of the fast-changing nature of ICT products and services and the growing ICT awareness and requirements of the South African NGO sector, SANGONeT conceptualised a new initiative aimed at providing the NGO sector with a wide range of affordable ICT solutions and approached ICOZA to partner around the provision of essential connectivity and a range of Internet support services to the NGO community.

The collective experience and expertise of SANGONeT and ICOZA will enable us to provide an extensive range of relevant and affordable ICT services to the NGO sector throughout the country.

The Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) has been at the forefront of providing information and communications technology (ICT) services to the South African NGO sector since its inception in 1987.

Existing SANGONeT dial-up clients, and the non-government and community-based organisations, will benefit from this range of new and affordable NGO.ZA services, backed by ICOZA.

ICOZA will provide NGO.ZA users support through a help-desk and a dedicated support line to provide first time and existing users of the NGO.ZA services with assistance.

The new 56k analogue dial-up service will offer the following benefits:

* Free 24/7/365 telephonic technical support
* E-mail box with five free e-mail addresses
* Virus protection
* Advanced spam protection and filtering
* Debit order payment system
* Reliability

Other ICT services available through NGO.ZA include the following:

* 64k ISDN
* 128k ISDN
* ADSL
* Hardware offerings (please refer to www.ngo.za for exciting opening offer)

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The NGO.ZA initiative is supported by proudly South African technology company Sahara Computers, in conjunction with its BEE partner Sahara Systems. Sahara is making available PC hardware at a special rate in contribution towards the NGO.ZA initiative.

Sahara Computers is a leading supplier of quality PC infrastructure, including peripherals and components across Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Africa.

Comments Atul Gupta, MD of Sahara Computers: "We are proud to participate in this joint venture to help ensure that non-government and community-based organisations benefit and we remain committed to initiatives that promote affordable access to much-needed information and communications technology."

The NGO.ZA initiative was officially launched on 21 October 2004 during an event at SANGONeT to celebrate World Development Information Day. The objective of the event is to highlight the role and significance of information and communication in the South African NGO sector and to profile the work of the sector and specific initiatives aimed at improving its information and communication capacity.

"The J&J Group`s ISP initiative, ICOZA, has allowed us to establish a very important range of services in the key data communications arena, delivering connectivity and advanced IT services to key sectors of the South African market," says Jay Naidoo, Chairman of the J&J Group and the Development Bank of South Africa.

"The ICOZA venture shows our commitment to develop black skills in the strategically important ISP sector of the market which shows huge potential for future growth as government and private sector demand grows for Internet-enabling infrastructure and support services that enable their online access and delivery of citizen and customer services.

"We are committed to build an empowered management team, with good training potential in this sector of the market to develop black skills and capacity. This positions us well for the Internet business in Africa. For us empowerment is a critical criteria - both the corporate and the public sectors have the potential to build a genuine black first tier ISP," says Naidoo.

"We believe we have the right ingredients to continue growing SA`s first black-owned first tier ISP. This will greatly impact on building a technical competency in the black community. On the back of contracts the venture will embark on an aggressive affirmative training programme focusing on women and the youth," Naidoo emphasises.