View from South Africa: Christmas party or bust?

23 Nov 09

Silly Season has started early this year. While the world still turns, there are a host of security professionals who have decided they are simply not interested in anything until January.

It's been a tough year. And while the industry has generally done well and avoided serious recessionary collapses, it hasn't been easy making it through the year and everyone is exhausted.

The much-lauded soccer world cup in 2010 has not created the trillions of jobs and opportunities and security boom market many hoped for. It has created a boom for the travel market, specifically those selling packages out of the country during the two months of chaos expected next year.

The British security companies coming down here to show how it's done will also have a very good year, assuming they get out alive. It's not the criminals they have to worry about, it’s the local security firms who think they should be doing the job who have – how does one put it – ‘unconstitutional thoughts’ towards the imported skills.

Fortunately, not everyone is showing the world the fingerprint and business continues with international companies showing interest in the local and African markets. And then there's the way biometrics is boosting rural healthcare.

Of course, there's lots more happening security-wise and I hope to be reporting on many industry Christmas parties soon.

Xtralis is back

Not that it ever wasn't in the country, it's rather a case of it not being run from Australia any more with the appointment of Lauren Sher as the regional sales manager, fire for Africa. Dave Boyack will continue to do the jet lag lambada between South Africa and Oz as he develops the Africa region.

At the same time, Xtralis has appointed Technoswitch as a Vesda distributor. Technoswitch has been a long-time ICAM distributor, but has switched to Vesda. It still manufactures its own range of fire, gas and smoke equipment. Interestingly, the owners of the company now also live in Oz and commute – talk about spending your life in traffic.

Functional healthcare

Leigh Yorke-Smith reports that iNathi SysCare is changing the face of rural healthcare services by implementing technology, led by biometrics, to help clinics provide healthcare services. Imagine that.

Steve Fitzpatrick and his partner Peter Keshwar are the brains behind the Healthcare Management System called iNathi SysCare.

Fitzpatrick’s journey began five years ago while working on a business development plan for healthcare systems in rural communities.

“The state of patient management in South African clinics was in dire need of attention," explains Fitzpatrick. “I was shocked not only at the queues, but at the terrible disarray of paperwork, filing, management and record-keeping.

“Half the reason for the horrendous queues spanning way beyond the entrance of the building was due to overloaded systems from within, lost records, endless searching for paperwork and as a result, overloaded nurses."

Working side-by-side with health workers and using the paper-based forms they use in their daily work as a base, iNathi created an electronic system that is not only familiar and understandable to those at the front lines of healthcare, but one that can generate the accurate reports and statistics required by decision makers.

“Our system had to be based on what was already working in the clinics," says Fitzpatrick.

The iNathi team solicited the skills of young technicians, unbiased and fresh out of university, to develop the SysCare system – a system that incorporates the enrolment of patient fingerprints for identification and verification, a user-friendly interface, queuing management and dashboard-guided consultations, as well as a flexible stock system.

The system has to take into account the low computer literacy levels of health workers in these areas, incorporating pre-defined fields to eliminate errors.

It needs to be flexible, mobile and run off a network or standalone database. In the end, it has to ensure that from the time a patient enters a clinic to the time that he or she leaves; the patient must be taken care of and fully documented in the system.

VideoIQ announces strategic investment in SA market

VideoIQ Africa has announced a strategic investment in the South African marketplace. VideoIQ first announced its arrival in SA at IFSEC/Securex in Gauteng in July and has now announced its strengthened position in the market.

The VIdeoIQ founders in the US have invested in VideoIQ Africa as equity partners in the business as they see a strategic opportunity locally. The company will be led by Andrew Page Wood from the IT industry along with Tinus Diedericks, recently of Timeless Technologies.

VideoIQ is the US-based inventor of the first plug-and-play intelligent CCTV surveillance system. This system builds all intelligence into the edge of the network inside cameras and encoder boxes. This means that network traffic is minimal while still giving high quality, high resolution video, making surveillance simple and secure with few false alarms.

They key to the system is the sophisticated analytics algorithms originally developed by GE. Combining this with a Web architecture requiring no DVR/NVRs or servers, no software licensing and no specialist hardware, sets the standard for the future of effective surveillance technology.

Secure voice calls via satellite

Cellcrypt has announced its Cellcrypt Mobile is available over Inmarsat’s broadband satellite services, enabling encrypted voice calls to be made on popular smartphones from anywhere on the planet.

Cellcrypt Mobile for Satellite solution provides end-to-end real-time encryption on smartphones, such as Nokia and BlackBerry, to prevent private conversations from being compromised, enabling individuals within corporations and governments to converse in a highly secure manner without the need for specialised handsets.

Cellcrypt uses the Internet to provide voice call quality phone calls and real-time encryption to levels specified by the US government. From the same handset, it operates on all major wireless networks including 2G (GPRS/ EDGE), 3G, WiFi and now satellite.

“This is the first solution that provides encrypted voice calls over satellites using commercial off-the-shelf smartphones. It provides a convenient and cost effective mechanism for people to make secure calls from locations where they have no cellular coverage or simply cannot rely on it,” said Etienne Louw, director-spatial security solutions of African Astronautics, local supplier of Cellcrypt.

Healthy employees increase productivity

Jenny Reid, director of The Orange, asks whether your employees' poor health poses a threat to your business?

The recession has severely hit businesses the world over. Companies are concerned about their finances leading to retrenchments, salary cutting and stringent budgeting in many industries. What is seldom taken into account is the considerable impact that these financial adjustments have on the employees of those businesses.

Employees are not only affected by readjustments at work but experience similar, if not more difficult times at home. An employee experiencing stress in his or her home environment will naturally be unable to be entirely productive in the workplace.

Estimates say that sick leave costs South African employers in the region of R12 billion per annum. It is being said that one in three South Africans will be taking sick leave during the World Cup in 2010 just to watch a game [Positive thinking! - Ed].

The Orange believes companies need to take responsibility and offer assistance to ensure employees are healthier.

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