Waspa gets new committee

By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist

Johannesburg, 10 Mar 2009

The Wireless Application Service Providers' Association (Waspa) has unveiled its new management committee for the year, in the hope to drive its intention of becoming a fully recognised industry body.

Leon Perlman will once again take the top spot as chairman. He has served as the chairman every year since 2005, and has also served on Waspa's regulatory portfolio since the organisation was established.

Perlman feels confident the committee will meet the challenges of the year ahead: “The mobile industry is becoming more competitive in SA. The financial crisis is certainly impacting spending and it's becoming more expensive for mobile service providers to promote products.

“We see that the industry has a lot of potential for growth. We've been very successful in interacting with government. And we are going from strength to strength, every year. Waspa aims to promote and regulate the mobile services industry in SA.”

The committee members are Michael Hainebach, marketing director at ViaMedia; Neil Hutchinson, co-founder and MD of Grapevine Interactive; Norman Parkin, CEO and co-founder of Integrat; Gavin Penkin, Exactmobile's director of portal and mobile entertainment; Dr Pieter Streicher, co-founder of Bulksms.com; and Caspar de Villiers, founder and operations director at Clickatell.

Striving for recognition

Perlman says Waspa aims to apply to the Department of Communications for recognition as an industry body for wireless application service providers, in terms of Chapter 11 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act: “Every member in the (Waspa) committee is a leader in their own right. We want to grow the industry and keep it on an upwards growth and we expect a lot of new technologies to be coming in.

"I would like to thank all returning committee members for their commitment to Waspa, and welcome those who join the Waspa management committee for the first time. I look forward to working with the management committee to promote an ethical, dynamic Wasp industry that continues to grow from strength to strength in the year to come."

Waspa was formed on 26 August 2004, with the intention to act as an industry body with a code of conduct to protect the interests and practices of its members and consumers in the mobile services industry. The organisation currently has a membership of 148 companies.