Unleashing the Power of Code and Jobs In Digital

Girls Invent Tomorrow, in partnership with Intel, HP and The Media Corner, hosted a coding event on 24 April. This event marked the celebration of International Girls’ in ICT Day, a global initiative which aims to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider careers in the growing field of information and communication technologies.

Coding, programming, scripting, application development – there are many technical definitions and nuisances that can be identified; in practise, though, these terms are used almost synonymously. Coding should be treated as the learning of a machine language, being able to read it, write it and understand it. Much like any other language, practise is vital, while ensuring students find ways to incorporate code in their futures is gaining importance.

“The vision for this joint coding workshop is not only to teach students how to programme, but to allow them to open themselves up to a whole new world where they can seek to further any career choice and to develop skills needed in a digitally savvy and connected world,” says Thuli Sibeko, founder of Girls Invent Tomorrow.

Coding addresses three fundamental skills young learners should develop, namely: problem solving, digital confidence and understanding the world.

1.      Writing, debugging and remixing your own and others’ codes assists in developing problem-solving skills. It encourages working with others, either in real-time or following tutorials, blog posts, groups and how-to guides.

2.     Digital confidence: digital literacy leads to an increased sense of confidence, not only in terms of social interaction, but also a sense of belonging in shaping the environments in which they find themselves.

3.     Understanding the world: helping coders realise they can change and influence society, and develop applications that can help others. In a world where almost everything has a digital component, being able to read and write our environment is more important than ever.

For Intel South Africa’s Corporate Affairs Director, Thabani Khupe, digital literacy is fundamental to learning in a curriculum-based environment. “There’s a need to improve digital literacy skills by integrating training into gender and development programmes in shared computing environments, where women, girls, men and boys can access hardware, software, internet connectivity, and ongoing support.”

Intel South Africa is also working to develop an online interactive gaming platform to encourage learning in an individual or mediated environment, across devices, and in the context of a peer network.

“As much as coding sounds complicated, it really need not be. Together with organisations such as Girls Invent Tomorrow, we can address this fear of coding in our youth and build on our vision for a continent well versed and equipped to be completely digitally literate,” says Khupe.

Jobs In Digital

Jnr Graphic Designer 

Designer Position in Durban

Flash has a vacancy for a midweight designer to join our awesome Branded Marketing team. Applicants must have a three year (minimum) qualification from DUT or Vega, two to three years design experience and one to two years social media experience. Interested parties please send your cv to roxanne.retief@flash.co.za. 

This edition by +Fred Felton 

Digital Strategist Vacancy in KZN Firm

Jobs in Digital Media

A Digital Media Agency Based in KZN is looking for a digital strategist.
The position is 9 to 5 and the company is based in the Umhlanga area.

Please send your CV to Hayley at hayleyd@affirm.co.za

HP Helped To Educate SA With The Anti-Counterfeiting Africa Conference

HP hosted the Anti-Counterfeiting Africa Conference recently, to help educate and empower organisations across the continent against the negative effects of counterfeit trade.

As a leader in the high tech industry sector, and a company that places a priority on protecting customers and its brand, HP will raise awareness on the impact and consequences of counterfeit trade during its summit in Johannesburg.

Reports¹ show that as the global trade in counterfeit goods is growing, Africa is increasingly being targeted as a market for counterfeit merchandise. A new trend has also emerged that Africa is being used as a transit route for fake goods, which also poses an indirect threat to European and American markets.

African nations are therefore becoming increasingly aware of challenges that counterfeit trade represents to their economies and their citizens, and becoming active in the fight against it.

Government officials, law-enforcers and representatives of ministries responsible for Anti-Counterfeiting, are gathering at the summit to discuss consumer protection and raise awareness against illegitimate goods.  Here, HP will outline how to fight counterfeiting, and look specifically at how policy makers can toughen applicable laws and enforcement capacity across Africa.

“The HP Anti-counterfeiting Programme works hard to protect partners and customers, but this is only made possible through close collaboration with law enforcers around the world” said Fabrice Campoy, Printing and Personal Systems Africa Director. “We therefore truly appreciate the cooperation of African law enforcement to helping to make this event possible, and protect African customers from the inferior standards and potential risks of counterfeit.”

Original HP supplies distinguish themselves by their superior quality and reliability at competitive prices. Authentic HP LaserJet and HP inkjet print cartridges, unlike counterfeits, benefit from a history of investment and testing to provide superior performance and consistent results.

“False goods impact businesses and global trade through lost revenue, damage to brands and the negative effects on hard-earned reputation and consumer confidence,” said Jeff Kwasny, Brand Protection Programme Manager for HP’s Printing and Personal Systems group. “At the 2014 Anti-Counterfeiting Africa Conference, we are bringing together those most affected by counterfeits in the region – from policy makers to brands like Unilever and Nike – so we can work towards tackling this criminal activity together”.

Across the EMEA region, over the last five years (2009 through 2013), HP has conducted around 1,600 investigations, resulting in about 1,300 enforcement actions (raids and seizures by authorities) and around 11 million units of counterfeit products and components seized, thus preventing them from being sold in the EMEA marketplace and beyond.

The Programme has also overseen around 4,000 unannounced inspections of HP products at the warehouses of HP Channel Partners across EMEA in the past five years (2009 through 2013), to verify that they are not selling counterfeit products to their customers.

Through its Anti-counterfeiting Programme, HP actively educates its customers and partners to be vigilant against fake printing supplies. It also cooperates closely with local and global law enforcement authorities to detect and dismantle illegal operations that produce counterfeit HP printing components.

For details on the event, and its speakers please visit http://hp-acf-africa-conference2014.com/

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software,services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

(1)  Based on report from South African-based research and strategy firm Consultancy Africa Intelligence (CAI), entitled “The trade in counterfeit goods: What is it, why is it a problem and what is its impact on Africa?” http://www.polity.org.za/article/the-trade-in-counterfeit-goods-what-is-it-why-is-it-a-problem-and-what-is-its-impact-on-africa-2010-08-04

Government could lose billions due to Malware

As much as pirating software is illegal and punishable by the law still a majority of people in different parts of the world practice it and this has become the most serious issue globally because it’s unacceptable and wrong to illegally use or copy software without purchasing the software legally. This act of immoral behaviour got the government blowing out a lot of cash and these days it’s more than just hacking consumer PCs, home and business network, copying or sharing someone’s work. Cybercriminals are starting to depend on software piracy industry to leave the ‘security backdoor’ open, enabling them to more easily steal identities, passwords and banking details.

The study, titled The link Between Pirated Software and Cybersecurity Breaches is a joint study conducted by IDC and the National University of Singapore, working with government officials within countries ranging from Brazil to the United States. About 203 PCs were purchased in Brazil, China and other countries were pre infected with unsafe malware including hacktools, viruses and Trojans which has expressed concerns over tireless cybercriminals employed malware that are embedded within PCs that are running pirated software. It has been suspected to be sold to consumers or companies. According to the study global enterprises are expected to spend nearly $500 billion this year in order to deal with issues caused by malware deliberately loaded onto pirated software.

Whilst $127 billion is expected to be spent on security issues and $364 million would be spent on dealing with data breaches. When it comes to consumers they are expected to spend $25 billion and waste 1.2 billion hours this year alone because of security threats and costly computer fixes from malware pirated software. And primary concerns for these institutions were the loss of business trade secrets or competitive information (59%), unauthorised access to confidential government information (55%) as the government could lose about $50 billion due to them having to deal with the costs associated to malware pirated software.

On top of that the study revealed that 60% of surveyed said that their biggest fear from infected software is the loss of data whether in form of file or personal information. Followed by the fear of data of internet transactions (51%) and hijacking of email, social networks and bank accounts (50%) though (43%) of those same respondents did not install security updates which indicates that as much as there are fearful of malware viruses but still they leave PCs vulnerable to cybercriminal attacks.

Two best ways to avoid purchasing malware-infested PCs

         ·        Whether you are an individual user, a company or even government make sure you buy new PCs from credible reputable sources to ensure that you receive authentic software.

         ·        

                  You can visit www.howtotell.com or http://www.microsoft.com to know more about malware    and in order to protect your family or business from malware associated with pirated  counterfeit software and to be able to have access to the tools needed to remove the      infection rather a virus.   

              Article by +Molly Dimpho 

Lowering the boom on South African software pirates

Efforts led by Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) and Anti-Piracy teams have led to the successful arrest and conviction of local software pirates.

In cooperation with the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) Directorate Priority Crimes Investigations (popularly known as The Hawks), the teams have executed raids on the premises of various resellers who have been identified by Microsoft piracy prevention programmes as being involved in the selling of counterfeit and/or unlicensed Microsoft software.

In the most recent enforcement actions around 100 counterfeit disks containing Microsoft software were seized along with a number of PCs, which were operating on unlicensed Microsoft software.

One suspect was arrested on site, whilst others were also rounded up. These suspects are now due to appear in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court for dealing in Counterfeit Goods, which is an offense that carries a penalty of R5 000 per disc and/or 6 months imprisonment.

More anti-piracy success in Pretoria

In yet another case last week, the Magistrate handed down a custodial sentence to Mr Guo Liaxuang of E-Café in Hatfield, Pretoria. Liaxuang was sentenced to correctional supervision for 2 years, during which he will be placed under house arrest for a period of 12 months. He will also be required to complete a behaviour reform course and perform community service, without compensation.

“At any given time, we have a number of active cases being investigated by the SAPS or being prosecuted by the National Prosecuting Authority. This is proof that the wheels of justice do turn and we’ve achieved several notable convictions of late,” says Marius Haman, DCU lead for the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

Beyond the criminal enforcement actions, the DCU also prosecutes civil cases through its Outside Counsel resulting in several successful actions.  These civil legal cases follow investigations where resellers had been warned of wrong doing, yet were not prepared to change their behaviour and continued to put consumers and businesses at risk. They’re often initiated in response to customer complaints directly to Microsoft.

“Microsoft is determined to protect our intellectual property as well as our customer and partner ecosystem from the threat and losses associated with software piracy. Our goal is to reduce those incidents in which customers end up buying PCs with unlicensed copies of Microsoft software and create a fair playing field for all partners,” explains Mr Haman. “Often cybercriminals exploit the vulnerabilities in counterfeit software through malware and spyware, which exposes consumers and businesses alike, to identity theft and/or cyber-attacks.”

Customers, partners as well as internal Microsoft employees are encouraged to submit any piracy leads to sapiracy@microsoft.com. 

For more info about piracy, visit Microsoft’s anti-piracy website at bit.ly/MicStopPir. Users who need to be able to tell whether their software is genuine or want to learn more about the identification of counterfeit and unlicensed Microsoft software can go do so at http://bit.ly/How2Tell.

Opportunity for Designers courtesy of Samsung

Inspire Design, a search to discover South Africa’s Top Talent

Creating real opportunities, through the power of technology

Inspire Design is a new campaign launched by Samsung Electronics South Africa - with the purpose of discovering South Africa’s best up-and-coming designers from a spectrum of creative industries and helping to turn their dreams into a reality.

Samsung will run its first ever design talent search programme in South Africa, based on the company’s global strategy to strengthen its commitment to unleash the dreams, passions and potential of individuals with brilliant ideas through innovative technology. In order to ensure the success of this initiative, Samsung has partnered with some of the country’s most esteemed designers in the creative space, to help identify talent.

The campaign aims to unearth creative talent across five design categories: fashion, furniture, homeware and décor – and was launched during Africa's first international design fair The GUILD, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).

The four judges chosen to search and ultimately choose, South Africa’s best emerging design talent include successful Jewellery designer Kirsten Goss, premium artist in Homeware and Décor, Susan Slee of Maneki, internationally celebrated Fashion designer, Shaldon Kopman of Naked Ape, and CEO of premium Furniture store Bakos Brothers, Ryan Bakos.

Globally, the brand is associated with similar programmes that unleash potential of individuals in various creative categories which encourage individualism, from music to film. Locally, as an icon of originality and true self-expression, Samsung is using the design platform to find the creative talent of these four disciplines.

Michelle Potgieter, Director of Corporate Marketing and Communications, explains, “Samsung’s culture of innovation is reaching beyond product to help people everywhere realise their potential. With beautiful design at the heart of Samsung’s philosophy, we are proud to partner on an initiative that will discover and showcase our next generation of upcoming artists.”

The search will unfold in two phases: the national recruitment, entry and judging process will take place between March and May. The four  judges will then select eight winners – comprising the top two designs in each category of the five disciplines. These candidates will then have the opportunity of a lifetime to showcase their talent through extensive media exposure and network with distinguished South African buyers.

“The South African design industry has gained huge momentum in recent years, and now some of our best designers compete on a global stage with their peers. Samsung’s Inspire Design will provide a sustainable and credible platform to some of South Africa’s top talent, and offer a unique and exciting opportunity for designers already working in the various design spheres. It’s not only about technology, but about realising the potential of people with dreams and passion,” concludes Potgieter.

For more information on how to enter visit http://www.samsung.com/za/inspire_design/. T&Cs apply.

Meet the Inspire Design Judges:

Kirsten Goss - Jewellery design:

A style icon in her own right, Kirsten cites her Scandinavian heritage and South African roots as important influences. It is her rare talent for tapping into contemporary lifestyle trends that has seen Kirsten Goss jewellery becoming one of this country’s most talked about designer brands. Kirsten’s flagship boutique is nestled in leafy Kensington, while design and production are headquartered in a state-of-the-art design studio in Durban.  A truly global business, with African roots servicing an international clientèle.

Shaldon Kopman - Fashion design:

Shaldon Kopman is a well-recognised name in the fashion Industry. His career to date has spanned the globe. He is director and founder of the bespoke men’s brand Naked Ape. Shaldon’s comprehensive knowledge of the fashion industry as a whole is complementary to his creativity and uses this experience to conceptualise in a refreshing and artistic way. He has a special talent for interpreting trends and his passion for Africa is manifested in his designs.

Susan Slee - Homeware and Décor design:

Susan Slee is the owner of Maneki van Staal, a well-known jewellery designer and manufacturer. Her fascination with the simplicity of instant drawings led to the birth of Maneki van Staal, an instant success with an engaging story behind each product and character. In the last five years, Maneki have opened three outlets in South Africa. Currently the Maneki product range includes sugar spoons, teaspoon sets, salad and cutlery sets, ceramic tableware, leather handbags and jewellery.

Ryan Bakos – Furniture Industry Leader:

Ryan Bakos was born into the Bakos family business and took over the reins in 2008.  The first step in this process was the recent opening of a 4500m2 factory in Wynberg, a brave move that has enabled Bakos Brothers to compete on a larger scale, as well as cut out the middlemen. The factory buys fabrics and leather in bulk, direct from the wholesalers, which has dramatically reduced costs, resulting in reduced prices on its sofas especially. Ryan has also introduced a new, cutting edge internal information system, which disseminates information and enables interaction between employees, creating a sense of family for the 100 staff located around the country

To discover more, please visit www.samsung.com.

Psssst want the bbm pins for some big brands?

For brands and businesses, BBM Channels provides a new way to interact and connect with a highly engaged and targeted mobile audience and build a community around their channel.

Thousands of major brands and business are already using BBM Channels to engage with their customers, including:

·         Disney - C002AB885

·         Mercedes Petronas - C00011785

·         Shaun the Sheep: C00124C49

·         E! - C00123A79

·         BMW SA – C00013EF1

·         Mr.Price – C00035FB5

·         PriceCheck – C000188FF

Here’s what one of our Channel owners had to say after using BBM Channels in Beta with BlackBerry users:

“The Desigual BBM Channel set-up was very simple and instantaneous. The interaction with our followers is nearly real-time, and the engagement level is high compared to traditional social networks. We’re seeing followers participate from all over the world and they are truly enjoying the direct contact with our brand. Our channel is also easy to manage as it is well-integrated with the rest of our social networks – in fact, the real-time feedback we get via our BBM Channel helps us to improve our content planning on the other social networks we manage. In just two weeks we had a strong and really engaged community of more than 10,000 followers. Our BBM Channel is currently in the top five of our social media networks that drive traffic to our e-commerce site, so we’re already seeing that it is generating sales.” 

Boris Mercier

Global Social Media Manager

Desigual - C0006E26C

Check out this video to watch BBM Channels in action.