Martin Fowler – one of the Agile Africa 2013 keynotes

I’ve been rolling up my sleeves to help get the “Agile Africa 2013″ Conference going. “Agile India”, “Agile South America” and others have all appeared on the international conference landscape, so why not an “Agile Africa”.

The idea was first explored in 2012. Unfortunately the people driving the idea didn’t manage to pull it off. The JCSE, in partnership with the company “ThoughtWorks”, and a group of interested Agile practitioners decided to make it happen in 2013.

We now have a date – 12 & 13 August, a venue – the Alex Theater in Braamfontein, and a great list of keynote speakers – Martin Fowler, Ivar Jacobson, David Hussman, Mitch Lacey, Amr Noaman.

We are now going live with a call for sponsors and registrations.  For more details contact me (until we have our official website). I’m at barry@jcse.org.za .

Marc, Gordon and the wonderful Pavilion assistants

This is my last evening in Hanover.

I visited Dean Yon’s store in the centre of Hanover. Dean is a South African who has lived in Germany for several years. His store in the Markthalle (which is something like a permanent Rosebank Flea Market) specializes in everything South African. He sells an amazing array of dozens of different South African wines, Simba Chips, Rooibos Tea and biltong. The seating area around his store was packed with people enjoying a bit of South Africa – and I was the only South African there (apart from Dean). It’s crowded like this every evening. As Dean says, “Germans love South African wine and anything else South African.”

As we enter the final day at CeBIT 2013, its time to reflect on the show and the success – or otherwise – of the SA National Pavilion.

It first must be said, loudly and clearly, that the dti and their team – Marc Müller, Gordon Gleimius, Mpati Mphela and Karin Liebenberg – did us proud. The unanimous opinion from both exhibitors and visitors is that the South African National Pavilion was magnificent. We could not have asked for anything better and all of us (including SA visitors to the pavilion like Dean Yon) felt extremely proud to be South Africans.

Some of the exhibitors on the Pavilion generated a great deal of interest and even signed some deals. For example, the holographic display from “Bottomline Interactive” and “Customer Care Solution” stood out as one of the highlights of the entire CeBIT show. Wiscor Technologies signed an MoU with the Russian Ministry of Education around their “traveling classroom” software. Without exception the companies on the SA Pavilion were pleased they had come to CeBIT, believed they have benefited and would aim to come again.

Exhibitors on our Pavilion said that coming to CeBIT had allowed them to see what other similar companies around the world were doing. It allowed them to see their products and service offerings within a broader international context. They also made contacts that could lead to future business benefits.

Without doubt CeBIT is a great show to come to. It may take place in Germany, but it is truly international and multi-faceted. Anything and everything that falls under the banner “ICT” from everywhere in the world will be found at CeBIT. Similarly visitors are not only German, or European. Based on visitors to our Pavilion I conclude that the only continent that is under-represented at CeBIT is Africa.

Against this background of success and happiness I do, however, have some negative thoughts. While all who participated in the National Pavilion benefited, did we bring the right companies? Also, did the companies that came benefit as much as they could have? My answer to both of these questions is “No”.

Not all of the companies on the Pavilion are “export ready”. When a company comes to CeBIT it should ideally have something that is tried, tested and ready to sell. It should be a company that has a strategy with some clear focus on international partnerships and markets. Before coming to CeBIT companies should do a great deal of preparation – book meetings, make lists of competitors and potential partners, print suitable leaflets, prepare websites, etc.

The dti has come to the party. It has invested a great deal of money and provided extremely generous incentives. I believe, however, that the SA ICT industry – individual companies, associations, and others – can and must do a whole lot more to achieve significant results from our participation at CeBIT. We need to work harder to find the right companies and prepare them for coming to CeBIT.

I often hear SA ICT companies complaining about Government’s lack of support for the sector. In CeBIT we have a clear example of significant Government support, and yet we struggle to find companies willing and ready to participate. With this in mind we must roll up our sleeves and start working now to ensure that CeBIT 2014 is an even bigger success for South Africa.

If you represent a company that could benefit from attending CeBIT, contact me at the JCSE, Eileen at the South African Electrotechnical Export Council (SAEEC), CITI/Silicon Cape, SmartExchange or the dti.

A day in the life of an exhibitor at CeBIT has three parts.

Early in the morning a few early risers sit at their stands dealing with emails or chatting with fellow exhibitors over their first mug of coffee for the day. There is a sense of calm before the storm, which comes just after 9am, when the gates of the show open for the day.

Between 9am and 6pm the day goes in waves. Visitors flow past like a never ending stream – CeBIT attracts more than 300,000 visitors each year from every corner of the world. As an exhibitor one fields questions, has pre-arranged meetings, and tries to slip off from time-to-time to grab some food or see something of CeBIT oneself.

At 6pm the gates of the show officially close for the day, and the parties and functions begin. Company stands and country pavilions are transformed as drinks and snacks are served to special customers and friends. In some cases live music drowns out conversations as exhibitors and visitors unwind and party late into the night.

Over the past few years the South African Pavilion has hosted one of the most popular and anticipated evening functions – a South African Wine Tasting. Everyone seems to LOVE our wine!  At 6pm on Day 3 our National Pavilion overflowed as hundreds of invited guests and their friends arrived to drink some (excellent) Cape wine and eat some (delicious) snacks. When I left at 7:40pm the party was still going strong! I don’t have the staying power of some of my fellow exhibitors!

Apart from the wine, the exhibit on our Pavilion that has attracted the most excitement is a transparent holographic colour display developed by “Bottomline Interactive” and “Customer Care Solutions”. A stylish white box sits on a plinth at eye level. Standing in front of the box you can see through clear glass panels on the front and back. Floating in the box is a 3-D image of a motorcar. The front panel is a touch screen. By moving your finger across this screen you can rotate the floating car. Another image that appears in the box is a black and white football. Yoram Nitzan, one of the developers of the system tells me that displaying pure black and white colours is a major innovation. Engineers from a major Korean electronics company visited our Pavilion to see this display and agreed that it was in some ways more advanced than anything they had.

While this holographic display certainly has the “wow factor”, other exhibitors on our Pavilion have seen a steady stream of interested visitors.

Pravin Maharaj and Avi Maharaj representing Wiscor

• Pilotfish Digital is a Durban-based software development company that has been to CeBIT before. It is a leading Microsoft-based integrator that specializes in developing solutions aimed at streamlining business processes for their clients.
• Qwix Technology has also been to CeBIT before. They offer a Warehouse Management System used by several major South African companies. Their solution includes several innovative features designed to automate and control material and inventory handling processes. The latest version of their software integrates with hand-held touchscreen devices resulting in a 100% paperless environment.
• GeoMed offers a range of healthcare technologies and medical devices. They have established partnerships with various academic and research institutions. One of the companies under the GeoMed umbrella is Mezzanine. It has become a market leader in the development of GSM enabled healthcare data collection and decision support systems for emerging market countries. Their platform has been deployed in Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa and India.
• SensePost has participated on the SA Pavilion at CeBIT several times before. Since it was founded in 2000 SensePost has become a significant global player in the information security space, providing skilled penetration assessment expertise to prestigious clients in Germany, UK, Switzerland, USA, Middle east and Africa. It has offices in London, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
• Thusa Dynamics is another Durban-based software development company represented at CeBIT by Tharun Pillay.  It has a focus within the travel industry. Thusa has also done work in the area of risk modeling and analysis for the SA Department of Defence, and in home automation and security.

Participating as part of the SA delegation at CeBIT has certainly opened my eyes to the range of innovative and exciting ICT products and services coming out of our country. Travelling to Germany to find this out has certainly been worth the effort!

Nithia Govender, Tjad Clark and Mohammed Badat at CeBIT 2013

As far as I see it there are two reasons to come to CeBIT – to meet people and to learn new things. On both of these accounts my second day at the world’s biggest ICT trade fair was hugely successful.

I spent some time today meeting exhibitors on the SA National Pavilion. (Isn’t it strange to travel thousands of kilometers to meet fellow South Africans!) There are 14 companies on the Pavilion, most of them are small and innovative with an eye on the future.

I asked some of them to tell me (briefly) what they do and why they’re here. This is what I found out:

• Korwe Software is based in Cape Town. It is represented at CeBIT by Nithia Govender and Tjad Clark. They are launching a new product at CeBIT – a “context engine” that helps mobile users filter information based on their position and other preferences. For example, a vegetarian traveller in Hanover searching for the closest restaurant on her cell phone would get different suggestions compared to her meat-eating companion.
• Wiscor Technologies is from Durban. It’s part of the “Oval Group” who is very active in the tertiary education space. Wiscor’s main offering is “Infiniti Place 2.0” which is a “travelling classroom”. It gives students access to e-lectures, e-books, e-dictionaries and YouTube videos. Wiscor’s software systems satisfy all of the reporting requirements for the SA Council for Higher Education. Pravin Maharaj and Avi Maharaj are representing Wiscor on the National Pavilion at CeBIT.
• “invirohub” is a smart energy monitoring solution. It integrates any compliant smart-meter, energy monitoring and leak detection products into a system that has been used by utilities, municipalities, commercial properties and light industrial clients. Lance Manala is representing the company at CeBIT.
• Mohammed Badat is the CEO of MyVoip Communications. This is his company’s fourth visit to CeBIT. They first came in 2007. MyVoip has an innovative “School Diary” product. They also support clients in implementing SOA-based integration of various systems.

I asked all of these exhibitors whether it was worthwhile coming to CeBIT and if they thought the SA National Pavilion was of value to them. Without exception they all felt coming to CeBIT made good business sense. Lance (from invirohub) said that with help from the CeBIT organisers he had targeted particular companies from all over the world who were offering similar solutions to his. He was able to visit them and learn about what they were doing. This has given him really valuable strategic insights into how he could develop his product in the future.

Pravin Maharaj believes that South Africa’s involvement at CeBIT could be much more effective and valuable if more preparatory work was done beforehand. He makes the interesting point that it is not up to the dti to do this preparation. Companies coming to CeBIT and the SA ICT sector generally need to take responsibility to develop a strategy and marketing material that will enhance our participation at CeBIT.

Watching the comings and goings on the Pavilion and having tens of conversations myself I have no doubt that having a substantial presence at CeBIT is good for the SA ICT Industry and for each of the exhibitors on our Pavilion.

My own personal Day 1 at CeBIT ended on a low … I walked 2 km through a cold Hanover evening to find somewhere (anywhere) that was screening the Manchester United vs Real Madrid game. Found it at “Tom’s Bowling Alley” on a channel that hopped irritatingly between the Man U game and another one involving Dortmund. I gave up at half-time – didn’t see the controversial referee’s decision that resulted in my team being knocked out of the Champion’s League.

Anyhow – none of this has anything to do with CeBIT!

Before I left the South African Pavilion yesterday afternoon I was interviewed by Sudi Mnette for the Swahili service of “Deutsche Welle” – the German radio station. He was puzzled that there seems to be no African countries represented at CeBIT. He was very excited to see South Africa here and asked me a lot of questions about ICT in Africa. I stressed the importance of mobile technology and how it is spreading like a bush-fire through our continent. My conversation with Sudi left me feeling that a stronger African presence at future CeBITs would add a lot to the picture of the international ICT industry that emerges from the event.

Part of my intention in writing this blog is to explore whether participation in CeBIT adds value to the South African ICT sector. I spoke to some of the exhibitors on the SA Pavilion yesterday about this.

Kees Snijders is here for the first time. His company “Flickswitch” has been in business for just over 5 years. Their main product, called “SIMcontrol”, is a web-based system that allows companies and organisations with large numbers of pre-paid SIM cards in the field to manage them.

Flickswitch has built a thriving business around this technology. They employ 7 people, operate from offices in Cape Town and Joburg, have 300 customers and an annual turnover of R15million. Kees is at CeBIT to look for potential partners that would help Flickswitch expand into Africa, Europe and elsewhere. This is the first time he has participated in one of the dti incentive programmes and has – so far – been impressed. He thinks the SA Pavilion is magnificent. He has also found that there is great value in walking around CeBIT – seeing what other companies are doing and getting a sense of what’s out there. He would definitely want to come back in future years.

Another CeBIT first-timer is Tsakane Shilubane. Her company “Shiluba Tsaka Productive” offers IT support services and software development. She is using CeBIT to gain a deeper understanding of the international IT scene and to look for partners and investors. She will definitely come back next year. She feels that having been at CeBIT for the first time will allow her to prepare better for future visits.

And as for my overall impressions so far – walking around some of the exhibition halls yesterday I’m SO impressed at how wonderful the South African National Pavilion is!! It is definitely one of the best around. The dti have done our country and our industry proud!!

Chancellor Merkel Opens Polish Pavilion at CeBIT 2013

by Prof Barry Dwolatzky

I’m back at CeBIT. I was last here in 2010 – and it’s really exciting to be back!

CeBIT is the largest international ICT trade fair in the world. It happens in Hanover, Germany, in March every year. Over the past few years the SA ICT Sector has been fortunate enough to have a South African National Pavilion at CeBIT – sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti).

I’m at CeBIT representing the SA Electrotechnical Export Council (SAEEC). I will be providing “industry expert” support to the dti staff and the 14 South African companies represented on the Pavilion.

Day 1 of the show has just started. Our Pavilion in Hall 6 is next to the Polish Pavilion. Poland is the “Partner Country” at CeBIT in 2013, and a few minutes ago the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Polish Prime Minister opened the Polish Pavilion. Having two heads of state coming to CeBIT is evidence that this trade fair carries significant clout.

The size and scale of CeBIT is something that needs to be seen to be appreciated. The venue in Hanover – called “Messe” – is one of Europe’s largest show grounds. There are something like 26 Halls each covering 1000’s of square meters. More that half the Halls at Messe are used for CeBIT.

The South Africa Pavilion is beautiful this year. Its bright yellow and open and covers 300 square meters.  But ….

Is it worthwhile?  Does it make sense to have a National Pavilion? Does it add value for the SA companies represented here? Does it bring benefits to the SA ICT sector? If you aren’t  here this year, should you try to be here next year?

Over the next few days I will use my blog to try to capture some of my impressions of CeBIT 2013. I will also try to answer the questions  I’ve just asked.

Paul Graham is an American programmer, investor and writer. In 2006 he wrote an article entitled “How to be Silicon Valley” (http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html). In his article he suggests that “What it takes is the right people”. He says that to establish a “Silicon Valley” you need two types of people in sufficient numbers – “nerds and rich people”. The “nerds” bring the creative energy, the ideas and the technical expertise upon which startups are created. The “rich people” are investors willing to provide the funding.

He goes on to describe how Silicon Valley in Northern California emerged as a hub for startup activity in the late 1970’s. The “nerds” came from some of the world’s top universities – Stanford, Berkley and others – in the Silicon Valley area. Many of the “rich people” were folk who had made their fortunes by setting up startups of their own in Silicon Valley.

According to Paul Graham, creating a Silicon Valley-type of hub in another part of the world requires the following:

• one or more good universities (a source of “nerds”),
• a living and working environment that is attractive to the “nerds” (to keep them in the area)
• a ready supply of wealthy people willing to invest in risky startups.

With these thoughts in mind, where in South Africa could we hope to see our own Silicon Valley emerge?  I guess that the knee-jerk answer is Cape Town. After all it has good universities and a beautiful natural environment dominated by the sea, the mountain and delicious Cape wine …. I have my doubts, however.

Without wishing to detract from the obvious advantages of Cape Town as South Africa’s ICT hub, I want to draw your attention to another part of our country – namely Braamfontein in central Johannesburg. I think that it has many advantages over Cape Town and anywhere else in South Africa. What has Braamfontein got going for it?

Firstly it is already an important hub at the centre of Africa’s richest region. Gauteng accounts for 40% of South Africa’s GDP. Most of this wealth is concentrated in a 10km circle stretching from the Joburg CBD to Sandton. Braamfontein is near the centre of this circle.

Braamfontein, and its immediate surroundings, is an educational, government and business hub. It is the home of two major universities (Wits and UJ), three of the four big banks (FNB, Standard and ABSA), the administrative centres of both the City of Johannesburg and Gauteng Province and major corporations such as Liberty Life, SAB Miller, Anglo American, Transnet and others. It is also a transport hub with South Africa’s largest mini-bus taxi rank, railway stations (Metrorail, Gautrain and national), bus routes and motorways (M1 and M2).

Over recent years Braamfontein has also begun to develop into an exciting and vibrant entertainment and cultural centre. There are music venues, theatres, bars and restaurants, a weekend market, the new Wits University Art Museum, and lots of new housing developments targeting students and young professionals.

The beginning of a software innovation hub is also taking shape in Braamfontein. Wits University’s Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) and Digital Arts Centre are on the Wits East Campus. Thoughtworks, the innovative American software company, has set up shop in Braamfontein. There are also plans for IBM to establish its South African “Skills Development and Research Institute” at Wits.

Given all of this I believe that its time to take Braamfontein more seriously. It is a strong candidate to become Africa’s Silicon Valley. I believe in it – watch this space!!

Welcome back to my blog. It has a fresh look and I hope you will follow me and share your comments in the year ahead.

In May 2000 the Economist magazine labelled Africa “The hopeless continent”. In December 2011 the same magazine featured an article entitled “The hopeful continent: Africa Rising”  (View the article) . This dramatic U-turn by the Economist put a smile on my face. I’ve never doubted the incredible potential of the continent on which I live. Did you? Now we are seeing that potential being translated into high growth rates and thriving economies.

But … as I shake off the beach sand and get my head back into gear for a busy 2012 I am starting to think of the challenges that lie ahead in the coming years.

Both in South Africa and throughout Africa the successful future forecast by the Economist is not assured. A great deal of hard work needs to be done. Challenges include infrastructure, health, education, political and economic stability … and many more. Somewhere within each of these challenges is Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – the key factor that underpins modern economic and social life.

Africa’s ICT sector needs to rise to the challenge of supporting growth and development on our continent.

As I sit at my desk drawing up plans, strategies and to-do lists for the year ahead … (Gosh!  Its already February and I’m still planning! ) … I find myself feeling really excited. All of us – the Software Engineering and ICT community of Africa – have a wonderful opportunity to rise to the challenge to ensure that Africa keeps on Rising!

I think that I’m ready to make my contribution. Are you ready?

A certain company in Johannesburg has, over the past few years, been outsourcing its software testing to a large Indian company. The value of this contract is R400 million per annum. The Johannesburg company employs several hundred software developers who write applications that support its business operations. It is these applications that are tested in India. 

The major aim of software testing is to expose “defects”. These defects are errors made by analysts, architects, designers and programmers during the software development lifecycle. Various international studies suggest that a piece of software going into system test contains more than 25 defects per thousand-lines-of-code [KLOC]. Data collected by Xerox in the USA concluded that the average time required to remove each defect found in system testing is 1405 minutes (or 23.4 hours). This time includes the time required to find the symptoms of the defect in testing … and then the re-work to be done by the original developer in locating and fixing the error. 

Defects are therefore costing the Johannesburg company mentioned above much more than the cost of the R400 million outsourced testing contract. There is also the large amount of wasted time spent by their in-house developers on re-work and debugging. At 25 defects/KLOC the company is shipping many thousands of defects to India. Some of these (but certainly not all) are then reported back to Johannesburg where tens of programmer-hours are required to fix each one. 

The waste in effort and money is almost mindboggling!! Surely there is a better way?

 I believe that the answer lies in putting higher quality code into system testing. It is obvious that if a way could be found to reduce the number of defects per KLOC from 25 to (say) 10 the saving would be tremendous. Not only that – we would also make software development projects more predictable. 

The reason for this is that the time it takes to find and fix a defect is very unpredictable. Simple defects are found and cleared in minutes. Others may take days or even weeks to resolve. It is therefore obvious that the fewer defects found in testing the more predictable software development projects would become. 

Another key issue about finding defects in system test is that because it is extremely time-consuming and unpredictable the project usually runs out of time and budget before all defects are found. The development team knows that if more tests are run more defects will be found … but who will pay for this extra testing effort? 

There is a proven way of dramatically reducing the number of defects in software before system testing starts. It lies at the heart of the “Team Software Process” (TSP) that is now being used with great success by companies in the USA, Mexico and elsewhere.  We at the JCSE have just run a year long TSP pilot at Nedbank. The results in terms of quality have been extremely encouraging. 

On Tuesday I will be unveiling the JCSE’s “Thousand Job Strategy” which aims to make a significant impact on the South African software development sector. TSP as a way of improving the quality and predictability of software development projects is a central element of the strategy. 

If you are interested in hearing more and debating this strategy with me, please join us at the JCSE’s Annual Process Improvement Symposium on the morning of Tuesday 26^th October 2010 (see www.jcse.org.za for more details). If you can’t join us then hopefully the debate will continue on this blog where I will post more details of the strategy after its launch on Tuesday.

So why do I write this blog? The answer is simple … I’m on a crusade. The sub-title of my blog makes it clear what this crusade is (broadly) about. It says I’m “passionate about the SA software industry”. My focus, however, is much sharper than that. Put quite simply … I’m on a crusade to ensure that the SA software sector grows in size and international reputation over the next 5 years. Furthermore I need to be able to accurately monitor and measure this growth. 

Is this a pointless crusade? Am I a Don Quixote figure tilting at windmills? 

Obviously I believe strongly that my mission is achievable. I also don’t, for one moment, underestimate the difficulties I face. 

So – let me lay it down in front of you!  Here is my action plan: 

1.  My first step is to clearly define what I mean by the “SA software development industry”.

2.  Having agreed what the “industry” is I need to measure its current performance. After considerable thought I’ve decided that the performance of the industry will be determined by collecting a set of 5 numbers from as many software development projects as possible. These numbers are:

• Size: Number of people in the team.
• Schedule Performance: What was the difference (in days) between the promised completion date and the actual completion date?
• Cost performance:  What was the difference (in Rands) between the promised budget and the actual cost?
• Project size/complexity: How big and how complex was the application developed in the project?
• Quality: How many defects (or “bugs”) were discovered during system testing?

These – per project – measures will then be averaged to give a measure of the state of software development in South Africa.

3.  I will then implement a strategy (see below) to improve the performance of the industry. My strategy also aims to increase the number of people employed in developing software in South Africa.

4.  On an ongoing basis the measures listed above will be collected and reported on.

5.   If my crusade is to be a success, I would want to see improvements in both performance and the number of jobs.

Before you say that this is “pie-in-the-sky”, or “mission impossible”, let me ask what else we should do to sustain and grow our local software industry?  We need to have ambitious plans, and (I believe) we need to monitor progress. I accept that it’s going to be difficult, but I’m ready to try! 

I’ve developed a strategy (see point 3 above) that aims to achieve my mission. I call it the JCSE’s “Thousand Job Strategy”. It aims to create 1,000 new software development jobs in South Africa over the next 3 years. It also aims to achieve a significant and quantifiable improvement in the performance of local software development teams. 

Are you interested in finding out more about the “Thousand Job Strategy”? It will be unveiled at the annual JCSE Process Improvement Symposium on 26^th October 2010 from 8:45 to 12:45 at the Sunnyside Park Hotel, Johannesburg.  I will be inviting comments, both supportive and critical. 

The Symposium will also be addressed by the eminent international software engineer, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Nagl, Emeritus Professor of Software Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. 

Visit www.jcse.org.za to find out more about the Symposium. Documents describing the “Thousand Job Strategy” will be posted on this blog after the Symposium.