Local company bridging digital divide

Some revolutions are not in the spectacular Alvin Toffler "Third Wave" league at all. They`re more like unobtrusive ripples, with the average person remaining largely unaware of their presence, let alone their impact. One of these quiet revolutions is being wrought by microprocessors, or microchips, and smart cards. So-called because although the silicon microprocessor chip itself is a "smart" or programmable chip, once embedded in its plastic host, the complete unit is referred to as a smart card.

The smart card revolution is being fuelled in part by a local South African company, Integrated Card technology (ICT). ICT is part of NamITech, which is a Nampak group owned company. It specialises in manufacturing and providing smart card solutions for secure technology and e-business purposes.

A recent innovation at ICT has put South Africa firmly on the map of smart card production and solutions provision advances. Says NamITech executive chairman, Rex Tomlinson, "We made a simple but revolutionary change in the way we `initialised` or formatted each microchip for use. Historically, the chips were first embedded in a milled or hollowed out area in a pre-printed, credit card sized plastic card. The chips would then be initialised or formatted for use. Even with the very small number of chip failures, there`s obviously added waste when the chip is already embedded in a card, if it fails to function correctly."

He says some creative thinking at Integrated Card Technology produced the idea of initialising the chips while they were still attached, post-manufacture, to a long spool or strip of tape. The "bad guys" could then be eliminated before any further processing. Saving time and materials. Tomlinson says that this innovation, coupled with Integrated Card Technology`s state of the art production line and processes, means that ICT is now able to produce, very cost effectively, upward of 22 million ISO standard smart cards a year.

"Contrary to common misperception, South Africa is very much `up there` with the developed economies, when it comes to technological leadership" he says. "Most people have seen a microchip - even if they couldn`t identify it as such. A Telkom phone card, the SIM card in your mobile phone, your cashless gaming card at a modern casino - all host the unobtrusive little gold-coloured wafer like chip. The significant difference between this and the magnetic or `magstripe` card that we`re all accustomed to, is that the microprocessor card can be programmed to do a whole host of things."

Tomlinson says that each day we interact with smart card enabled machines, access and security systems, mobile phones, medical insurance cards, payment systems, loyalty programs and a host of other applications. ICT`s brochure heading is "The smart card - enhancing your life, changing your world." Indeed so.