BY Fast Company SA 2 MINUTE READ

At the 10th AfricaCom Awards this week, SqwidNet won the award for IoT Product/Service of the Year. SqwidNet, the licensed SIGFOX IoT network operator in South Africa, received this award for the best platform or deployment of an IoT solution, focusing on the business requirements, integration and benefits gained.

“Winning the IoT Product/Service of the Year award at the 10th AfricaCom Awards is a great achievement and a humbling experience for our team, especially as we are just under a year old and were competing against some of the biggest and more established industry players on the continent including MTN, Qualcomm, Orange, Huawei, Ericsson and eWaterpay,” says Reshaad Sha, CEO SqwidNet.

Since its roll out which began in February 2017, SqwidNet has reached 75% of the population in South Africa. The network is on track to achieving 85% coverage across the country by the end of 2017, and is also exploring expansion options into other African countries.

“Our holistic approach to market comprising of network roll-out, ecosystem enablement, market education and entrepreneurship and innovation support has been pivotal to us receiving this accolade from the industry.”

“We will continue to contribute towards the accelerated development, deployment, and adoption of the IoT in South Africa in a manner that will ensure that the country and the continent at large will reap the benefits of inclusion, participation and improved quality of life enabled by the IoT,” concludes Sha.

About Us 
SqwidNet, a wholly owned subsidiary of DFA, provides a nationwide open access IoT network based on the SIGFOX technology. SqwidNet provides listening posts for messages from various objects to store, manage, track and operate communication signals for different purposes to connect the physical world and the digital world. It provides an efficient, scalable network that is purpose built to connect hundreds of millions of sensors and devices broadcasting data across South Africa.