New CEO for mLabs at CSIR

2012-06-11 13:01

Derrick Kotze has appointed as the new mLab SA CEO. (CSIR)

Duncan Alfreds

Cape Town - The Mobile Applications Laboratory Southern Africa (mLab SA) has appointed Derrick Kotze as its new CEO.

Kotze will oversee the development of the CSIR body to facilitate commercial opportunities.

"I have a simple vision for mLab SA; that's to make it synonymous with opportunity," said Kotze.

He joins the organisation from Nokia where he was the developer for outreach and marketing for East and Southern Africa for two years.

The CSIR secured 14 international patents in 2011 and Kotze is driven to facilitate partnerships to spur technological development in SA.

"Mobile entrepreneurs not only hold the key to creating new jobs and stimulating rapid economic growth in the region, but also to democratising many services and opportunities that have historically eluded many across the continent," Kotze said.

The organisation has been on a campaign to attract leadership and received funding from the World Bank to expand its operations.

"We have recently reorganised our activities into four competence areas and two special units, focussing on cyber infrastructure and we managed to attract very good leadership for those areas," Laurens Cloete, executive director of CSIR Meraka Institute recently told News24.

Kotze begins his duties on 15 June and will focus on mobile computing.

"We are excited about Kotze joining the initiative driven by Meraka, The Innovation Hub and Ungana-Afrika. He has strong capabilities and experience in building the mobile ecosystem, which is exactly what we are looking for so that we can give developers opportunities to realise the power of mobile computing," said Cloete.


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