Author: Editor

Contrary to popular belief, wearing sunglasses is much more than just being stylish and trendy. Experts in commercial eyewear agree that sunglasses are a critical component of effective eye healthcare and leading the charge in awareness is BondiBlu®, an international iconic eyewear brand. BondiBlu® is 29 years old. It has served the global fashion-conscious eyewear market for a near three decades. Over the years the business has built up an unrivalled level of market experience and fine-tuned its portfolio of services. Today, as markets the world over get to grips with healthcare services provision, BondiBlu® warns consumers that winter is…

By Fred Senekal, Head of Research and Development at Learning Machines Paying attention to the 5 Vs (volume; velocity; variety; veracity; and value) of data is critical if a company is to derive strategic value from its big data. With these informing the decision-making process, an organisation can transform into a data-led environment. Gathering, processing, and visualising data can aid in extracting value and financial benefits from it. But it is only when the 5 Vs are managed that true insights can be unlocked. Given the speed at which companies are embracing digitalisation, incorporation of big data and big data…

They worked under the same roof at PBMR (Pty) Ltd’s head office in Centurion, South Africa: some of the world’s leading nuclear scientists, engineers and other specialists. They were going to build the world’s first commercial High Temperature Reactor. Alas, when the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project was closed down in October 2010, they were snatched up by nuclear companies all over the globe. Most of them have obtained citizenship of their respective new countries and are lost to South Africa for ever. Here are some of their stories: Frederik Reitsma When his PBMR consulting came to an end, Frederik…

By Tom Ferreira About a dozen South African nuclear engineers and scientists who were in the first decade of the new millennium involved with South Africa’s abandoned Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project, are now part of a team who is spearheading the development of a similar concept in the United States. The South Africans were lured to the US by X-energy, a nuclear reactor and fuel design engineering company based in Maryland. It is not inconceivable that South Africa will be one of X-energy’s international customers when the US concept is commercialised in about seven years’ time. A whole…

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd was established in 1999 with the intention to construct a demonstration power plant at Koeberg near Cape Town, South Africa, and a pilot fuel plan at Pelindaba near Pretoria, after which the reactors were going to be commercialised for the local and export market. Although it wasn’t the only gas-cooled high-temperature reactor developed at the time, the South African project was internationally regarded as the leader in the global power generation field. In addition to the core team of some seven hundred people at the PBMR head-office in Centurion near Pretoria, more than a…

By Synthesis Director of Integration and Products, Steyn Basson When I was a teenager I loved to read. I still do, but an abundance of audio-books, on-demand television shows, podcasts, and general work means I don’t get to do it as often as I used to. One of the main reasons I loved reading, was because of (amongst others) an amazing writer called Douglas Adams. He let me in on little inside jokes and ideas that I was blind to before, but which I suddenly started noticing everywhere (see “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon” for more details). Amongst this treasure trove of information…

Ralph Berndt, Sales and Marketing Director at Syrex The past 12 months have brought about significant disruption in organisation’s technology processes. Instead of dealing with a predominantly centralised workforce, IT teams must now manage a work from anywhere environment while still ensuring systems run optimally. Addressing this will be one of the strategic priorities for operational success in a cloud-driven world. During the start of the hard lockdown, many employees struggled with connectivity as they transitioned to working from home. And even though fibre rollout initiatives have accelerated in recent years, access is not pervasive leaving a significant portion of…

By Angela Ho Talking with friends recovering after contracting COVID-19, it is clear that that one does not only survive the virus. There is a recovery period that is substantially longer than just hospitalisation. Post-COVID-19 syndrome or long-COVID has shown to drag on while your whole body experiences heightened symptoms or new reactions to this disease. As only one aspect of the global pandemic, in reflection, while scanning the news of outbreaks of new variants of COVID, the other is the ‘long’ and persistent mental impact of how businesses and homes have had to endure radical daily shifts in life.…

A new concept, cargo loyalty, has emerged within retail and related marketing, and all evidence suggests it is already helping to lift the ailing aviation industry off its knees. Leading independent customer relationship management company, LoyaltyPlus, says aviation has taken a serious hammering from the global COVID-19 pandemic and is looking at various ways to encourage business. Cargo loyalty is being discussed as a credible means of doing just that. Online research shows that aviation is leaning on air freight and cargo to make up for the impact of lockdowns on conventional passenger air travel. A report published by Simpleflying.com…

International Women’s Day (8 March) highlighted the importance of gender equality while celebrating the efforts by women and girls in shaping a more equal future. But more than that, Nicol Myburgh, Head: HCM Business Unit at CRS Technologies, believes it has also put the focus on companies, their treatment of all genders, and the workplace practices required to affect meaningful change. “How people of different genders are treated is still a significant obstacle to overcome for organisations across industry sectors,” he says. “And even though laws are in place to prevent this from happening, the reality is that these concerns…