In one sentence, what does “togetherness” mean to you in the context of the telco & technology industry in Africa?
In this industry, we are all dependent on each other, and we fulfill different roles in this ecosystem. This is what is so exciting about this part of our industry, that we need to work together to enable each other’s goals. We are interconnected with our partners as well as our competitors, so it is not a matter of “if” we work together, but “how we work together”.
How do you see the concept of “togetherness” playing a pivotal role in fostering innovation and growth across the technology and telecom sectors?
I think the following quote captures the concept of “togetherness” really well:
“Coming together is a beginning, Keeping together is progress , Working together is success”
At LINX we depend on our data centre partners, fibre providers, ISPs and content providers, customers, and other partners, and we come together to enable each other. But it is when we work together and complement each other’s strengths that we become successful. LINX forges strong partnerships with data centres to offer a rich suite of interconnection services to local communities, but we also work with ISP associations and experts to do capacity building and training, and with large transport providers to offer interconnection across large distances. But we also see an important part of our role as an IXP to be connecting all the different players in the community.
We bring competitors together to cooperate and we try to be a catalyst for innovation and growth by playing a positive role in the ecosystem. Hamwe resonates very strongly with me. And I would even claim that Hamwe is in LINX’s DNA…
Can you share an example of a successful partnership your company has established that has accelerated digital transformation in the region?
We value strong partnerships here at LINX and in the past 12 months alone have established strong partnerships with IXAfrica data centre, one of our strategic partners in Kenya in order to launch our new interconnection facility – LINX Nairobi. We have also formed a strategic partnership with Africa Data Centres to explore joint opportunities across Africa as well as welcoming them to the new Nairobi IXP network too. Similarly with Digital Realty, we became an official partner of theirs just recently and we are happy to be extending our partnership with them from the UK and US to Kenya as well with iColo becoming part of the LINX Nairobi network. In our industry, collaboration is key and we champion this at LINX.
We wouldn’t be able to deliver future proof solutions like this to help the country grow digitally, without strong data centre partners on the ground and also the right technical partners with the same vision and solution to help us execute this.
