Pictures from the Smart City Conference and Expo 2008

Read the Story about the2008 Smart City Conference and Expo

Here of some pictures of Exhibitors and delegates

SmartCity Conference and Expo 2008

It’s day two I’m at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Conference Center in Durban, South Africa at the second SmartCity Conference and Expo. It is so cool to we in a free wireless zone – provided by one of the generous sponsors no doubt. Hey if it were me, I’d have put tent cards and note pads on the tables or overlays with my url on.

But I look around, dizzy with cyber delight. For those who don’t live here – wireless is not common in South Africa, certainly not in Durban. And because we are all dependent on ONE main ultimate service provider Telkom, our bandwidth is very expensive.

The excitement at this conference is not only because of the number of new businesses that are part of the Expo, but because Durban’s local government – eThekwini Municipality has announced that it is rolling out a more afforable, high quality broadband via its own fiber optic cable network.

The annual conference, held under the auspices of Smartxchange, is certainly getting bigger and better.

Smartxchange Flies the Flag at Smme Fair

The 10th Annual Small Business Fair was held at the Durban Exhibition Centre from 19 21 September 2008. Organized by the Business Support Unit (BSU) of the eThewkwini Municipality, in partnership with the KZN Department of Economic Development this Fair has grown from a few participants to a massive fair of 400.

Smartxchange was there to promote the development of the city’s ICT Sector as well as the Smart City Experience, which will be held at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli ICC on 1 and 2 October 2008.

CoreTalk Adds Value to SmartCity Conference & Expo with SMS Service

In the past decade, SMS or text messaging has grown into one of the most popular and flexible tools of modern communication. Whilst SMS was once just a tool for social and bulk marketing, it is fast becoming the top communication medium for instant, simple and cost effective business communications. And it’s a Durban based company Coretalk SMS for Business that is leading the market.

This year’s SmartXchange conference is aimed at exhibiting new and innovative technological solutions as well as educating the market and visitors on the availability of value added services across a broad spectrum of technological advancements.

Coretalk SMS for business is proud to announce that it is partnering with SmartXchange and Vodacom for this year’s exhibition to provide informative, immediate and advisory notifications to all delegates. Messages will include pre events marketing, events notifications, ad-hoc advice on talks, prize giving and networking sessions. Done through an intelligent, cost effective and accepted medium, direct from the Coretalk stand, this will hopefully set the platform for an exhibition full of innovative and interactive intelligence.  .

Originally developed to vend virtual airtime to pre paid customers, but later expanded to accommodate business SMS applications, Coretalk is now easily integrated and adopted into any communication platform. The Coretalk solution’s primary objective is to empower all business with a messaging, communication and CRM tool that enhances productivity, reduces operation expenditure and improves external and internal customer and staff communications

Ever wondered how they work? Those informative reminders about your pending dentist appointment, or car service or the dreaded withdrawal on your plummeting bank account? Well wonder no more. Come on down to the second SmartCity Conference and Exhibition being held at the Albert Luthuli ICC on the 1st and 2nd of October 2008.

New Media for Elections

I recently contributed to a workshop organised by Marlan Padayachee for Greengold Africa for the Democracy Development Programme.

The Three Day workshop was a multi-party one for representatives of political parties in KZN and one of my inputs was on the role of so called new media – ie Internet, e-mail campaigns, Facebook, Youtube etc in political campaigns.

Smartxchange gave me a few goodies to hand out and I encouraged the politicos to come to the Smart City Conference and wise up on all e-stuff.

I know that the masses are not yet online, but every day more people are “connecting to the grid” and with eThekwini’s broadband roll out it is only a matter of time before the statistics in our city go crazy and Internet becomes the communication medium of choice, especially for the poor and those in the outlying areas.

And the politicians – well they’d better be a few steps ahead, or the people are going to leave them behind!

Internet Solutions to show VoIS and Streaming Technologies at SmartCity Conference

Internet Solutions will show VoIS and Streaming technologies at SmartCity Conference that will run on 1 and 2 October in the Inkosi Albert Luthuli ICC in Durban, South Africa.

In addition to its highly popular Internet Café that was one of the major attractions at last year’s SmartCity Conference & Expo, Internet Solutions (IS) will be showing delegates its VoIS solution in a live environment. Also, IS will stream, live, the full content of the entire conference via IS servers to an international audience so they can watch and hear all the sessions.

IS will also again host the Internet Café, which city officials said was the most popular exhibition at the 2007 Conference. The Internet Cafe provides delegates with free access to the Internet and their email during the event.

Read more

Indian Delegation to be in Durban for the SmartCity Conference

An 11-member delegation from the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) of India is arriving Durban to examine prospects for business and tie-ups with their South African counterparts.

The Consulate General of India in Durban has arranged this visit in such a way that it coincides with the 2nd SmartCity Conference and Exhibition scheduled to be held at International Convention Centre (ICC) on 1st and 2nd of October, 2008.

Read more about the visit of the Indian Delegation

Imagine Durban: Smart City = Accessible City

A Smarter City is certainly a more Accessible City. This was one of the outcomes of the Imagine Durban Accessibility Workshop.

Imagine Durban is a council-led initiative on integrated, long-term planning that is being implemented in conjunction with Sustainable Cities, an NGO from Vancouver, Canada, and the PLUS Network, a network of 35 cities in 14 countries established to share experiences in sustainability planning. Imagine Durban is a process that will start with mobilizing each of us (from government to non-government, civil society organizations, faith based groups, tertiary institutions, business organizations and ordinary folk) to imagine what we want our city to be like in the future, and to create a path to begin taking us there today.

One of the key outcomes of the Imagine Durban will be a plan for long term sustainability for the city. Through the initial consultation process seven key theme areas have been identified for the plan:

1. Safe City
2. Caring & Commitment (Behaviour Change, Volunteerism, Human Value System, Family)
3. Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation
4. Human Development
5. Accessibility
6. Environmental Sustainability (Future City / Eco City)
7. History, Heritage and Culture

Proposed Goals for Accessibility

Based on written feedback from Durban stakeholders to the Imagine Durban project and input from the Accessibility workshop a number of potential goal areas have been identified and draft text for these goals are presented below:

All those who live and work in Durban, regardless of income status or physical disability, have equitable degrees of access to:

1. Commercial facilities, including shops and financial services;
2. Recreational areas and opportunities;
3. Municipal infrastructure, including water, sanitation and electricity services;
4. Safe and healthy places of residence;
5. Community services such as hospitals and schools.
6. Pedestrian, bicycle and public transport facilities.
7. Information and communication technological (ICT) services.

Read more about Imagine Durban.

MobileActive 08 – Getting Even More Connected

A friend recently told me he thinks that his 14 year old son believes access to a PlayStation is a basic human right like access to housing or water.

As our city gets smarter we are going to learn to communicate in new and different ways and get our learning and power from a variety of sources.

The one that is right at hand, literally – is the mobile phone.

Some believe that in Africa, Internet access is going to almost bypass the PC and go straight to mobile phone holders who will learn to connect on their cells.

MobileActive08 is a three-day event  that will convene key stakeholders interested in the use and application of mobile technology in support of social action. Specific attention will be given to the role of mobile technology in health, human rights, economic development, advocacy, education, citizen journalism and democratic participation.

Genetics Solves Fiber Optic Problem

Its really weird how it happens – you’re looking for one thing and something else just pops out and catches your eye! I write on Forensic Science for a Canadian Website, so I’m always on the lookout for anything linked to DNA. I stumbled onto this Australian Scientific website and this really interesting article caught my eye – Genetics cracks fire-optic problem.

I know nothing at all about fiber optics, except for what I’ve read in the SmartCity documentation – oh and one disgruntled person mentioned on a bulletin board that the rats were eating up our cables underground. (I put it down to the general negative mindset that “if they don’t steal the telephone wires, the rats rats will eat the cables – we’re doomed anyway!”)

But this article from Sciencealert explains that Australian scientists have used genome analysis tools to create a patented technology to investigate the fate of the laser beams zapping through the optical fibres that connect our cities.

“Their ideas have broken the back of a communications industry problem – how to identify the causes of noise in these optical cables that form a key part of the backbone of the Internet.

The device that they and their fellow engineers at NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence, have invented, will, for a few thousand dollars, do a job that today would cost $100,000 plus and would require multiple types of test equipment.”

Read more