IBM bets R820m on Southern Africa

By Staff Writer for IBM
Johannesburg, 05 Dec 2007

International IT vendor IBM will increase its investment in Sub-Saharan Africa by $120 million (R820 million) in the next two years.

The investment will focus on accelerating development of new markets, enabling "crucial" ICT skills and creating new jobs, it says.

Mark Harris, IBM MD for the South and Central Africa region, explains: "The Sub-Saharan African market is poised for double-digit growth flowing from the development and expansion of telecommunications networks, power grids and transport infrastructure. Private and public sector investment in the region is transforming the ability of the market to participate in the global economy."

The initiatives will see IBM hire up to 100 university students to meet growing demand in services, global delivery and software development.

Additionally, the vendor has committed to the creation of an Africa Innovation Centre, which will house the continent`s first High Performance On Demand Solutions Lab. IBM already has labs in Brazil, China, India, Japan, the UK and the US. The African lab is scheduled to open during the second quarter of 2008.

Small businesses, entrepreneurs, business partners and other clients will benefit from the lab`s advanced software development capabilities, as well as access to high-end servers and storage equipment, it says.

Innovation outlook

IBM says the investments follow a series of meetings it held to discuss economic development opportunities in Africa. These formed part of IBM`s annual Global Innovation Outlook process.

The company has formulated several initiatives to address issues that emerged from its discussions with business leaders, academia and government, it says.

These include the creation of a mentoring programme, Makocha Minds - named after the Swahili word for 'teacher`. This programme is expected to give "hundreds" of Africans computer science, engineering and mathematics students the opportunity to advance their skills through first-hand access to IBM skills. Already, 250 IBM scientists have enlisted to participate in the outreach, with Cisco, Coca-Cola and FedEx also partnering in the initiative.

IBM will also donate a $1.5 million (R10 million), 14-teraflop BlueGene/P system to the Centre for High Performance Computing, in Cape Town. The company hopes the donation of Africa`s most powerful supercomputer will "spark scientific and socio-economic progress in the region". Access to the system will be free of charge to qualifying African institutions for use on advanced scientific projects.

In partnership with CARE International, IBM is creating an African financial grid, built around its shared services and infrastructure model. This project is designed to help microfinance institutions in sub-Saharan Africa dramatically lower the costs of providing financial services to previously unbanked populations in the region.

IBM says the grid initiative will help reduce operating costs, streamline lending processes, scale rapidly, and integrate with other resources such as credit bureaus, financial institutions and international payment networks. Ultimately, it is hoped the grid will be able to link with telcos, or other mobile payment providers, in Africa to enable customers to repay loans or transfer money via mobile phones or other devices.

These moves build on other investments IBM has made in sub-Saharan Africa, including $120 million on its Integrated Delivery Centre, where 1 500 jobs were created. It also spent $15 million on a business continuity and recovery services facility and recently launched the Small Business Toolkit in SA.

IBM has formal university partnerships and training programmes with Vaal University of Technology and Tshwane University of Technology in SA, yielding jobs for more than 180 IT graduates.