Solar powered tablet PC for SA
They have created the Millbug Vuya Tablet PC, a solar powered tablet PC that will help users who may not have access to electricity or who suffer from power outages.
Sibana and Volwana understand the industry and through their company, Millbug (Pty) Ltd, they conceived the tablet. The tablet will retail for no more than R1499.99 to ensure that it is within reach of its intended users.
Millbug, which concentrates on technology hardware and web development, believes that the Vuya Tablet PC will allow for greater participation of Africans in the digital economy. Less than one percent of content online is created by Africans, they say, and this alarming statistic needs urgent attention. "Instead of celebrating the rise of the African consumer, this device seeks to catalyse the rise of the African producer," they add.
Thulilsile Volwana is an Economics graduate at NMMU and Sabelo Sibanda is an MBA student at the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland.
Millbug was registered in April 2012 and it came about through a chance meeting with Fred Roed, of World Wide Creative who made them aware of the opportunities in technology and, more specifically, the vast opportunities in South Africa.
The Vuya Tablet PC is described as "a rugged, yet aesthetically pleasing tablet that effortlessly runs on the Android 4.4 KitKat operating system."
The tablet has a 1.2 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of storage a photovoltaic (solar) power source as well as the ability to be charged using USB or a conventional power outlet.
Volwana and Sibanda joined the Shanduka Black Umbrellas incubation programme which helps budding entrepreneurs and small businesses because it offered a firm like theirs unprecedented opportunities to make a contribution to society: "The educational, networking and business incentives are second to none and they have a proud history of enviable achievements," they say.
Millbug's clients are spread out all over the country, providing web and app development services. "We have built some fantastic relationships around the continent with regard to our hardware innovations," says Sibanda.
The company employs a team of 10 'performance partners' around the country who work as agents.
Sibanda and Volwana see their business becoming the leading mobile solutions company in Africa by 2020 - and this is their goal.
Asked how their company differed from others in the field, they said: "Besides constant innovation through our practices as a learning organisation, we believe that mobile has changed the face of Africa and it is now the time for Africa to change the face of mobile. This focus on developing proprietary solutions in our niche has helped us stand out from the crowd."
