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Telkom launches Open Innovation Mega Challenge

Telkom today announced the Open Innovation "Mega Challenge" to all South African innovators, calling on them to think innovatively about Telkom.

The company has invited all small and medium business, universities, research institutes, not-for-profit organisations, start-ups, individual inventors and innovators to collaborate with Telkom by responding to the challenge with innovative proposals for technologies and solutions.

Says Telkom's Managing Executive of Product House, Mr Steve Lewis, "As a leading communication provider and, by extension, a facilitator of the innovative spirit, Telkom has always endeavoured to inculcate innovation into its business operations."

The challenge set by Telkom is based on a theme of products for the future that will stimulate and drive broadband growth. The focus areas include, but are not limited to, convergence; cloud solutions; vertical segment solutions; machine to machine solutions, smart buildings and smart cities.

Entries are judged on their innovation, feasibility, commercial viability, market appeal, must directly benefit economic growth and social development and also stimulate broadband penetration.

A total of R200 000 worth of cash prizes and Telkom products and services will be awarded for the three best submissions. First prize will be awarded R120 000 and free 40 Mbps DSL service (where available) for 24 months with Uncapped usage and a VDSL modem; second prize will be awarded R50 000 and free 10 Mbps DSL service for 24 months with Uncapped usage and a VDSL modem and third prize will be awarded R30 000 and Free 10 Mbps DSL service for 24 months With Uncapped usage and a VDSL modem.

Closing date for submissions is 30 November and winners will be announced at the end of March 2014.

"This challenge and its theme illustrates Telkom's forward thinking disposition and points to the rapid changes that characterise the ICT sector," says Mr Lewis

"We are keenly aware that in an environment of hyper-competition, competitive advantage is linked to intangible resources that are rare and difficult to imitate. The most valuable of these is the ability to innovate. The Mega Challenge forms part of this corporate imperative," concluded Mr Lewis.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Telkom Park, The Apex 92 Oak Avenue Technopark Highveld Centurion

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

• fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
• fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
• interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
• fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
• Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
• W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
• mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
•  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
• other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.