W Cape shines in TT100 awards

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 25 Aug 2006

That five out of the 10 top emerging companies for this year`s Technology Top 100 (TT100) awards come from the Western Cape shows the high level of IT innovation coming from the province, says TT100 GM Stephan Lamprecht.

Speaking last night during the Western Cape TT100 Enabling Event in Cape Town, Lamprecht also acknowledged the work Western Cape innovator, the Cape IT Initiative (CITI), had put into mentoring a number of the start-up companies that also helped improve the overall quality of entries.

"It is quite significant that most of these companies are IT and ICT related," Lamprecht said. "The quality of the entries, even from those who entered last year, has improved dramatically."

This point was also remarked upon by science and technology deputy minister Derek Hanekom, who paid particular tribute to CITI executive director Viola Manuel and to the biotech incubators Cape Biotech and Acorn Technologies for fostering the ICT and biotech clusters in the Western Cape.

Hanekom said he was troubled to note many small and medium companies were reluctant to pursue the opportunities in black economic empowerment.

"In our recent collaborations with the Japanese, we have learnt first hand, of the limitations they faced as a result of their innovation system being too one-dimensional," he said.

The five Western Cape emerging companies are:

1. Skyrove - enables small entrepreneurs to earn an income by sharing Internet access using WiFi technology.
2. SmartGuide - developed an automatic global positioning system audio tour guide that plays tourist information through a car radio.
3. Fraxion - developed a management solution to control and analyse expenditure and cash flows in real-time.
4. White Wall Web - a systems development consultancy specialising in Web-based database systems focusing on bespoke applications.
5. Cell-Life - developed an information gathering and provision system to manage the treatment of various illnesses on the African continent.

Hanekom said Skyrove and Cell-Life will have a chance to present their cases to an international investors` forum to be held in Germany as part of the European South Africa Science and Technology Advancement Programme.

The Johannesburg TT100 enabling function will take place on Thursday, 31 August.