by AKANI CHAUKE
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – WOMEN entrepreneurs in South Africa have embraced the benefits of Cloud services as a necessary tool for small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs).
This follows a three-day course under the aegis of the Huawei Women in Tech digital skills training programme.
The session opened with a survey amongst the women delegates of their knowledge of the uses and application of cloud computing.
On a scale of 1 to 4, there was a resounding 0 or 1 response, but by the end of the third session, this had soared to 3s and 4s, with commitments by many to join further Huawei training and accreditation opportunities.
“After the success of last year’s inaugural women in tech training we were excited for this year’s edition, receiving a fantastic response,” said Vanashree Govender, Huawei’s Media Relations and Communications Manager.
“Whilst Huawei brings expertise and infrastructure to the digitisation of businesses, South Africa faces a skills deficit, women in particular are most affected and this training is aimed at bridging that digital gender divide, and we hope it will give them an edge in the digital economy.”
A vast range of businesses sectors was represented.
Sandi Sobahle, Huawei Cloud, Senior Manager Business Development presented on Day One and took delegates through what, why and how cloud computing could be relevant to different business models.
“Using the illustration of the total cost of ownership of an on-premises data centre, I was able to show the value of Huawei’s cloud hosting packages for these businesses and for their clients,” he said.
Siphiwe Matore, Huawei Cloud, Senior Manager Solutions Architect, presented on the scalability of cloud computing with the emphasis on Huawei’s ‘pay as you go’ model.
“Growing businesses require growing technology,” she said.
“That is what this course was designed to illustrate,” Matore explained.
“It demonstrated that a small business could entrust the migration, upgrade and maintenance of its data delivery, storage and retrieval to a cloud provider, leaving them to focus on their core expertise.”
The final day’s presentation by Matshidiso Jabane, Huawei Cloud, Partner Development Manager gave the delegates more information about Huawei’s technical and commercial support, their training and certification programmes and the Huawei R100 million Cloud Spark acceleration programme for tech start-ups and SMMEs.
The latter is set to provide support to more than 1 000 SMEs over the
next three years.
“The Cloud is already part of our everyday lives, even if people don’t realise it,” Jabane said.
“These three days of training de mystified cloud computing and gave women the confidence to confront and embrace the future and incorporate cloud computing into their respective businesses,” she added.
Delegate, Sihle Gili, of Norina Enterprises commented, “I am excited that we are onto something revolutionary that will change the African narrative and the politics of access to information,” Gili said.
Kgomotso Motshidi of black female owned consulting company, The Zora Group, said what stood out is investment in both security as well as infrastructure that provides assurance to SMMEs and clients.
“We fully envisage providing managed services as well as digital migration for our clients,” Motshidi said.
– CAJ News