22/09/2007 15:52 - (SA)
Soccer fans may use cellphones to access 2010 games
MALOSE MONAMA
SOUTH Africans could be using their cellphones to gain access to the 2010 Soccer World Cup stadiums. That is if entrepreneur Daki Nkanyane has anything to do with it.
A sucker for hi-tech contrivances, Nkanyane has turned his weakness for gadgets into a successful business.
He is the founding managing director of Tswelopele Solutions, a provider of complete and integrated technology for access management solutions, ticketing and payment solutions for stadiums, arenas, leisure parks and other entertainment venues.
In Africa, Tswelopele is the exclusive distributor for Skidata, the global provider of access solutions and multi-application software platforms for ski resorts, parking facilities and stadiums.
Skidata access solutions are deployed at some of the world’s best sporting and exhibition facilities, including the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, which hosted the 2006 Fifa World Cup Final.
Tswelopele also has rights to the Smartmachine technology which provides direct ticket sales, reservations and delivery via cellphones.
Access to a venue is gained with the mobile telephone via a 2-D barcode or Near Field Communication. The tickets are non-transferable.
“The main focus of Tswelopele Solutions is to bring about globally competitive and sustainable solutions in the areas of access management solutions to South Africa,” Nkanyane said.
“Our business is characterised by efficient and effective integration of mobile ticketing, RFID (radio-frequency identification) applications, parking solutions, accreditation, cashless payments and other related technologies in partnership with the best companies in the world,” he said.
The 33-year-old from Seshego, in Limpopo, has spent most of his young life in the world of hi-tech and said he has always known he would end up in business.
Nkanyane said he got on to the idea of going into the ticketing business after his realisation that there was only one player in the market, Computicket.
“They are a monopoly and we needed to break that.
“I thought I could bring competition to the market.
“The idea excited me but I could make no headway until I sold it to an old friend, who, though already in business, fell for it.”
That old friend, Bongani Madondo, is now a partner in the business.
Nkanyane quit his job at Siemens, where he was a key accounts manager, in order to pursue his dream.
“I started to develop it around the whole ticketing scenario, using various methods. The hypothesis of one of my ideas was that if you can buy airtime from an ATM, why can’t you buy a ticket from an ATM?” he said.
“Even though that idea never got to fly as an original concept on its own, it became very clear, however, that there were many other methods that we could apply, such as mobile ticketing, internet ticketing and so on.Those are some of the channels we targeted for use in the business.
“As we were working and developing the ticketing concept I had, there were questions around how we were going to deal with this at the fulfilment side (the venue),” Nkanyane said.
“There was a need for technology at the venue to recognise the ticket, so that’s what led us to look around the world, where we found this company called Skidata.”
Nkanyane said he did not go into the ticketing business just to tap into all the opportunities around 2010.
“Yes, the 2010 opportunity is a driver, but we are really in this thing for the long haul,” said the astute entrepreneur.
Having been formed in 2005 Tswelopele solutions is still very much an upstart and operates out of the Innovation Hub in Tshwane.
All this, however, looks set to change as Nkanyane’s techno endeavour has grabbed the interest of a lot of people, including the rugby unions, soccer clubs, municipalities and, most importantly, the Local Organising Committee of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
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