Africa

On March 7 this year King Mswati III of Swaziland officially opened the new international airport, also known as King Mswati III. A key component of the Millennium Development goals (MDG) programme, the $280 million project is not unattended by controversy, but is seen as essential if Swaziland is to make the most of its geographical advantages and become a mini hub within southern Africa, providing a complementary role to OR Tambo Airport only a couple of hundred miles to the west.

King Pie is a South African franchise and a member of The Franchise Association South Africa (FASA), just one of a number of fast food brands one might be tempted to think, but KP demands to be taken seriously. It claims to make the best pies in the world, assuring its customers that it really does take pies seriously: “It’s easy to get caught up with cooking trends and cost charts, but we know it’s the basic things that make a good pie – freshness, quality ingredients, and value for money.”

Africa is often referred to as the "dark continent," with internet and telephony penetration rates some of the lowest in the world. That, however, is changing rapidly, with projects like the West African Cable System (WACS) and the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) being planned and deployed to deliver much-needed connectivity to the continent. Infrastructure these days is not all about roads and bridges and railways.

There’s no arguing with the fundamentals. Growing populations, reduction in arable land, changing dietary preferences, climate change and the escalating demands of emerging economies have placed food security at the top of the political as well as the economic agenda. World population is growing by some 75 million every year. By 2050 almost 9.3 billion people are expected to inhabit the earth.

What motivated you to choose engineering as a career?

CAAZ was established on January 1, 1999 as the civil aviation agency of Zimbabwe. It took over the role of the then Department of Civil Aviation, a direct government entity, and it still operates under the control of the Ministry of Transport, but as an arm’s length statutory body, or parastatal organisation that works as a commercial organisation.

Established in 2010, Poswa Incorporated (Poswa Inc.) is a progressive law firm, which specialises in providing services across all aspects of commercial law, including the structuring of transactions, negotiation and drafting of agreements, legal opinions and legal due diligences. Through specialist insight and personalised service, Poswa Inc. focuses on tailor made legal solutions that broaden business horizons.

Aerosud is the biggest manufacturer of aircraft parts and assemblies on the African continent, producing 1.5 million parts and assemblies a year and on the back of an established track record of quality and delivery it has become a single source supplier for almost all of the products it supplies. It is a fantastic success story, so much so that the company was declared a strategic industrial national asset by South Africa's government owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC).

Capital Star Steel SA, based in Maputo Province, Mozambique, is a subsidiary of the South African company, Capital Africa Steel (Pty) Ltd (CAS), the company through which Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon (WBHO) operates its construction materials businesses. WHBO is one of the largest construction companies in Southern Africa, listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange with 12,000 employees, and had a turnover in 2013 of more than R23 million.

MC 2014 is the global forum for exchanging views and developing capacity, to ensure that new mines are designed with closure in mind, and old sites are closed economically, whilst minimising environmental and societal impacts.