Alan Knott-Craig has stepped down as CEO of free WiFi provider Project Isizwe. The position will be filled by Zahir Khan, who is currently serving as chief operating officer of the non-profit organisation.
Knott-Craig will leave Project Isizwe at the end of this year to focus on other business interests, including his new HeroTel venture.
Meanwhile, the company has expanded its board of directors to six, with Professor Estian Calitz, Nape Maepe and Martin Kuscus joining from November 2015. The new additions join chairman John Volmink, Sibs Moodley-Moore and Khan.
“Project Isizwe is out of the start-up phase and with the new additions to the board and leadership change, we are geared to scale the organisation to meet its core objectives,” says Khan.
Prof Calitz currently serves as is the executive director of finance and professor of Economics at the University of Stellenbosch. In 1989, he became the deputy director-general at the South African Department of Finance and in 1993 he became the director-general. He left government in 1996.
Kuscus was the MEC for finance in the North West Provincial Government from 1994 until 2004. Prior to that, he spent 17 years in health care services. In June 2004 he became CEO of the South African Bureau of Standards, a position he held until July 2009. He was the chairperson of the first board of trustees for the Government Employee Pension Fund overseeing a portfolio worth R850-billion and also served on the PRI board as well as the UN Global Compact initiative on Responsible Investment. He has served as chairperson of the Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund and president of both the Finance and Fiscal Commission and the Afrikaanse Handels Instituut; and was also elected for a two year term on to the Council for International Standards Organisation (ISO).
Maepa was the founding chairman of the telecommunications Regulator of South Africa. He has also managed a USTDA-funded project for a complete electromagnetic frequency band plan for South Africa as well as spearheading the creation of a new numbering plan. He advised the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries on ICT regulatory reform and setting up the ARICEA group of national ICT regulators for the COMESA countries.
Since 2013, when Project Isizwe first started its flagship project to provide free WiFi to Tshwane, it has connected more than 900 000 Users across 711 free Internet zones.
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