Johannesburg, 01 Nov 2016
Gathering innovators together at hackathons and developer challenges is a highly effective way to uncover new solutions to Africa's problems, and organisations need to support more of these, says MTN CIO Benjamin Marais.
Speaking on the sidelines of the first TADHack telecoms hackathon to be staged in South Africa, Marais said MTN had great faith in the ability of Africa's developers to solve Africa's problems. "We are confident that Africa, and South Africa, have a high level of innovation and development capability. But it's one thing to have that confidence and another to see whether it will present at an event such as TADHack. It's sometimes a problem: you know the talent is out there, but the question is - how do you find it?"
"Historically, you might go to a university or a consultancy firm to ask for assistance to solve problems, but when you look at an environment like this, where everything is collaborative and free flow, people walk around and do what they want to do, and then come up with a solution. It's a very different way to do things, but it is successful. An event like TADHack, where we discover high levels of innovation and solutions with definite potential, shows that we should continue hosting events like this as a country."
In a quest to develop an innovative ICT-based ecosystem, MTN and MTN Business are actively supporting development programmes including the MTN Business App of the Year challenge, TADHack and the Mind2Machine challenge. MTN believes that by expanding its solution partner network and supporting ICT innovation, it can more effectively support South African business and bring to market solutions that solve unique local problems and improve business. "MTN will continue to support events such as these, because this is where you get people together and you discover the level of innovation out there," Marais says.
TADHack South Africa, contested by 100 developers, and TADHack Zambia, were the first international TADHack events staged in Africa. Marais hopes to expand the programme in future, to catalyse collaborative efforts to solve Africa's problems using telecoms technology.
"I would like to present to our EXCO the success stories emerging from this event, and next year look at involving more of MTN's 22 operating companies. We could also look at expanding on the streaming of other TADHacks around the world to facilitate more collaboration between developers across Africa in future," he says.
Share