Sourced from eNCA. The COVID-19 pandemic has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the world’s richest cities but poses an even greater threat to cities in the developing world. There are now more than 150,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across Africa, in all 54 countries, with South Africa and Egypt the worst affected. One of the most pressing concerns for Africa is that over half the population (excluding in North Africa) live in overcrowded informal settlements. In these areas where several people have to share one badly ventilated room, diseases such as COVID-19 spread fast and it is impossible to practice physical distancing whether in homes or outside. Other preventative measures are equally challenging. Only a third of households in Africa have access to basic handwashing facili...
When it comes to digital transformation, COVID-19 has been a massive accelerant. Businesses with long-term transformation deadlines have been forced to bring them forward dramatically: what was once planned for 18 months’ time, now has to be ready immediately. Consumers are engaging with businesses that are digitally astute now more than ever before. Those that are able to innovate, and to make their products and services available quickly, easily and reliably, are sure to succeed; those that aren’t sufficiently transformed will likely be left behind. This digital transformation drive has far-reaching implications: for how we work, for the tools we use, and for businesses’ long-term relevance. It is shaping the future of our working world. The evolution of office space /* custom css */ .td...
Sourced from Shutterstock. Insurance provider and risk mitigator Aoncyber has published a new report titled “Cyber Risks in Africa.” The report focuses on the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) which is ushering in a new economy and a new form of globalisation, both of which demand new forms of governance to safeguard the public good. This new chapter in human development is enabled by extraordinary technological advancements, and along with this progress comes inherent risks. African states need to equip themselves better when it comes to cyber resilience in order to actively participate in the global economy, by effectively managing and mitigating the effects of data breaches and cybercrime on their economy and citizens. The 4th Industrial Revolution brings many opportunities, as well as in...
An increasing number of businesses are switching to a Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), which is a unique approach to wide-area networking because it combines traditional WAN technologies with the Internet and provides more visibility within an organisation. The move to SD-WAN is largely driven by distributed enterprises with multiple remote offices, which are increasingly using business-critical, cloud-based applications and tools that are migrating away from performance-inhibited wide-area networks (WAN). According to Louis Kirstein, DSM Expert for Connectivity Services at T-Systems South Africa, the visibility provided by an SD-WAN enables network administrators to oversee the network and monitor traffic for inconsistencies. From a security perspective, this functionality all...