Ten small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) will strut their stuff at South Africa’s major defence and allied sectors exhibition in September courtesy of Armscor after making the cut from 119 applicants.
Their success sees the SMMEs secure places on an initiative emanating from Armscor’s enterprise and supplier (ESD) programme. Its focus is the small business sector of the South African defence industry (SADI) particularly those owned and managed by youth, women, military veterans and people with disabilities and exposing them to the realities of a major defence exhibition – Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) – said by those managing it to be the premier exhibition of air, land and sea technologies on the African continent.
Market access is listed by Armscor as one ESD focus area and the high-level exposure associated with AAD, now in its 25th year, indicates the SMMEs can expect knowledgeable and worthwhile foot traffic at their stands on a dedicated Armscor pavilion. Other ESD focus areas are incubation, training and sector specific integration. This sees the State-owned defence and security acquisition and project management company assist, as an example, small businesses with integration of technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into security, supply chain, energy and water monitoring areas of operation.
Tuesday 28 July saw the second SMME dry run ahead of this year’s Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition set down for Air Force Base (AFB) Waterkloof from 16 to 20 September. Apart from the SMME representatives present who each gave a brief overview of their companies, products and services, Armscor staffers took them through the nuts and bolts of a major defence exhibition attracting foreign and local visitors.
The SMMEs will be fully sponsored in line with Armscor’s commitment to growing the South African defence industry, particularly among population sectors generally not previously seen as defence economic contributors. When this publication asked about the SMME cost for AAD it was told the amount “is not yet finalised” and no estimate could be given.
An Armscor list names the participating enterprises as Battlecopter MG, QP Drone Tech, Sparcx, SVM Projects, Tirela Industries, Lizwile Engineering, Mochochonono Group, Sebakeng M Holdings, Integrated Geoscience Solutions and Thebe Projects.
The selected companies includes military veteran-owned enterprises, black women-owned enterprises and black youth-owned enterprises. Half the participants form part of Enterprise Development and half form part of Supplier Development.
Sparcx, the sole supplier of Axon Enterprise technology, will use AAD to demonstrate how body-worn cameras, drones, command tools and digital evidence management can operate as one integrated public-safety ecosystem. The company’s focus is on technology that can support defence, border-management and law-enforcement operations while securely preserving digital evidence for investigation and prosecution.
Axon technology supplied through Sparcx has already been introduced within the Border Management Authority, providing a local example of its application in frontline border operations.
