National Elections: How does all that ICT infrastructure get set up?

Ever thought how the IEC sets up all that technology for national elections? What do they do with the thousands of computers that are surely only used every few years? It must become obsolete before the next elections?

Well believe it or not, there is a company that specialises in just that. When it comes to setting up any temporary IT infrastructure, Go Rentals are the undisputed heavyweights in this space. Go Rentals was amongst many ICT companies who bid for the 2016 elections. The scope of work included the supply of computer hardware and setup of operations centres nationally, including the ROC, the Results Operations Centre in Pretoria.

Of all the temporary IT projects the elections must surely be the most stressful? Unlike an office IT setup, the elections cannot be pushed to a new date.

"Supplying the computers is just one facet of temporary infrastructure", explains Ron Keschner the Sales and Marketing Director at Go Rentals. "It is a complex project involving software deployment and imaging, Forward and Reverse Logistics, Asset Management, Risk Management and Contingency Planning, IT security and detailed project planning."

"It has a lot of moving parts, but it is what we love doing, and we have built the systems and experience over 15 years," adds Keschner.

Besides the IEC, many other news organisations rely on Go Rentals to provide fully-functional temporary IT environments from which they work and broadcast internationally during the event.
When the event is over, the reverse-logistics kicks in, where every asset has to be sanitised, safely returned and accounted for.

Operating across Southern Africa, Go Rentals also provides temporary and permanent rental infrastructure for training, promotions, disaster recovery, call centres, retail, film and a host of other industries.