Founder Alan Knott-Craig Jr shares his plans for Fibertime, as well as the challenges he has faced in his bid to connect South African townships.
In this episode of ITWeb TV, serial tech entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig Jr , who was involved in organisations like Project Isizwe , Mxit , iBurst and Herotel , discusses the successes and failures he has faced as a businessman and how he learnt from them. Knott-Criag also talks about his new venture fibertime and how it’s planning to bridge the digital divide.
Knott-Craig Jr is a prominent South African entrepreneur, author and advocate for digital inclusion, known for his efforts to expand internet access in underserved communities across the country. In 2013, he founded Project Isizwe, a non-profit company managing the deployment of the largest public free WiFi network in the country. The following year, he established Herotel, aiming to consolidate wireless internet service providers and expand broadband access in rural areas.
“We started in April 2022 and the idea was to go to the townships and connect every household with a free router. We had lots of problems and challenges when we started because no one had ever done that before in South Africa. Building infrastructure in townships is not easy because of construction mafias, shack fires and protection rackets.”
“We can connect from 700 to 800 homes in a day and we are not just passing homes but connecting homes.” Knott-Craig Jr said of all the companies he has been involved in, he still has fond memories of Mxit, a free instant messaging application developed in SA that ran on over 8 000 devices, including feature phones, Symbian S60, Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone and tablets.
Fibertime Mxit Cellfind Project Isizwe Herotel Entrepreneurship Fibre Internet Connectivity Kayamandi Mamelodi
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