{"id":44261,"date":"2013-08-15T15:33:59","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T13:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=44261"},"modified":"2013-08-16T09:25:44","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T07:25:44","slug":"alan-knott-craig-jnrs-new-free-wifi-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/44261\/alan-knott-craig-jnrs-new-free-wifi-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Knott-Craig Jnr’s new free WiFi project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alan Knott-Craig Jr<\/a>, former head of Mxit<\/a> and World of Avatar<\/a> (and before that iBurst<\/a>), has resurfaced as the founder of Project Isizwe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Project Isizwe is a non-profit organisation with the stated goal of bringing free Internet to Africa.<\/p>\n

News of the organisation emerged at a recent press briefing held by the City of Tshwane in Centurion for its new free Wi-Fi project.<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig was involved in rolling out free Wi-Fi in Stellenbosch through Mxit prior to his sudden departure from the company in October 2012.<\/p>\n

From Mxit to Project Isizwe<\/h3>\n

Speaking at the media briefing for the Tshwane free Wi-Fi project, Knott-Craig told attendees that a few months ago he found himself in the position of so many South Africans: young and unemployed.<\/p>\n

Knott-Craig said that while he was deciding what to do next he decided that he wanted to make a difference, and so from the Stellenbosch free Wi-Fi project, Project Isizwe was born in April 2013.<\/p>\n

He explained that he originally anticipated that he would run Project Isizwe on the side while managing another for-profit venture, but said that Isizwe has grown to demand most of his time.<\/p>\n

Asked where else in Africa Project Isizwe is in discussions to roll out free Wi-Fi, Knott-Craig said that they are talking to local governments in Namibia and Zambia.<\/p>\n

However, Tshwane is going to be the first city on the whole continent to roll out free Wi-Fi aimed at citizens that can\u2019t afford it, Knott-Craig said.<\/p>\n

He said that he has been impressed by the eagerness and the vision shown by the metropolitan municipality.<\/p>\n

When asked by journalists why other African cities had not embarked on a project similar to Tshwane\u2019s, Knott-Craig said that his unemployment might have something to do with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are not many people who know the system that aren\u2019t working like me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More on WiFi<\/h3>\n

Tshwane to get free WiFi<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

AlwaysOn boosts free WiFi in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN, WirelessG in WiFi offloading deal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Free WiFi for SA labour courts<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Affordable uncapped ADSL with free in-flight Wi-Fi<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Mxit and World of Avatar boss Alan Knott-Craig has resurfaced as founder of a Wi-Fi non-profit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":44262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[4395,6491,26,6493],"class_list":["post-44261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-alan-knott-craig-jnr","tag-free-wifi","tag-headline","tag-project-isizwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44261"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44286,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44261\/revisions\/44286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}