Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
GIANT Mother City placed in list of top tech cities on the planet
Cape Town has been ranked as one of the world’s top tech cities, and is the only one on the African continent to make the cut.
Global property firm Savills’ Top Tech Cities Index measures 30 cities from around the world against 100 individual metrics, and evaluates which offer the most successful home for tech and start-up companies.
Cape Town ranked in 30th place and fared exceptionally well in the real estate and cost of living sub-category under “buzz and wellness”.
Acknowledging that co-working has gone hand in hand with the growth of the global tech sector, Cape Town ranked sixth on the list with residential rent and co-working costs noticeably lower than other major cities around the world.
As noted by the researchers, a Tech City possesses five key characteristics:
An important centre of tech within its region.
Major recipient of venture capital investment.
On the shopping list for expanding global tech companies.
A vibrant city in which to live and work.
A generator of and magnet for talent.
“The Savills’ ranking demonstrates we are on the right track and how the City of Cape Town is successfully creating an enabling environment for start-ups and tech talent,” says James Vos, mayoral committee member for economic opportunities and asset management.
He says: “In response to this growing industry, the City of Cape Town is continuing to invest in IT infrastructure, and to date the city has installed 848km of fibre-optic cable. Towards 2021 the city will spend R1.98 billion on fibre infrastructure. As we move further into the fourth industrial revolution, all businesses will evolve, in some form, into tech businesses, no matter what sector. With these shifts, the Cape Town tech start-up eco system will continue to grow and become more complex. It will become increasingly essential that the city remains focused on how we can facilitate conditions and sustain a supporting environment.”
Wesgro chief executive Tim Harris says: “In Savills’ Tech Cities 2017 report, Cape Town was earmarked, along with Santiago and Buenos Aires, as ‘magnets for talent in their regions’, with potential to become global players. Cape Town has since been acknowledged as Africa’s leading tech capital, employing more than double the people than Lagos and Nairobi combined. It is recognition through esteemed reports of this nature that will continue to position the Mother City globally as a world-class tech destination and a springboard into the rest of Africa.”