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Powell Tronics attends SecurExpo East Africa

In April 2016, Kenya’s education cabinet secretary, Fred Matiang’i, announced that universities and colleges will need to capture the biometric data of all students. This move is in the wake of the increased number of terror attacks in Kenya and will entail enhanced security measures that include the installation of metal detectors and the use of biometric registration systems.

On the back of this enhanced security awareness, the second SecurExpo East Africa exhibition, held at the Visa Oshwal Centre in Nairobi, Kenya between 8 and 10 November 2016, was a firm success. Powell Tronics once again participated in the event and the team was suitably impressed at the calibre of visitors attending.

Mike Austen, national sales manager at Powell Tronics, says that the number of exhibitors increased from 50 in 2015 to 60 in 2016. “This is indicative of the increased exposure the exhibition has experienced since its launch in 2015. We noticed that although we had fewer visitors to our stand, the purchasing ability of these visitors was much higher than in 2015. Without a doubt, the visitors were a more focused group of people and included a number of end users and installers looking for specific project solutions. We even discussed our solutions with representatives from the governmental offices of neighbouring countries as well as the Malawi High Commission.”

With the presence of Morpho and Impro at the show, the collaboration between the three companies and their dedication to and investment in the Kenyan market was highlighted.

Attending GovTech

The tenth GovTech ICT conference, held at Gallagher Convention Centre in late 2016, focused on public sector ICT service delivery. Powell Tronics used the event to showcase its access control technology solutions and capabilities to a captive audience of government-employed risk and ICT managers.

GovTech is organised by SITA, the South African Government’s ICT platform. Responsible for the consolidation and coordination of the State’s information technology resources, it enables the efficient delivery of e-government services to the public, as well as overseeing the procurement and delivery of IT processes to ensure that government uses the most cost-effective services.

John Powell, CEO of Powell Tronics, says that this is the second consecutive year that the company has had a presence at GovTech. “We were invited by our customer CEOS to provide a component of their Platinum sponsorship package. CEOS Technologies was responsible for the provision of turnstiles and enrolment for the conference and Powell Tronics sponsored all the biometric readers at the entrance to the venue and all of the enrolment devices at the registration desk.”

Powell Tronics promoted its entire range of access control solutions including door hardware and intercoms as well as hardware from Morpho and Impro. While all of the company’s software solutions were available for review, its main focus at the GovTech event was the exposure of PT Active Directory (PT-AD).

Leonie Mangold, Powell Tronics Johannesburg sales consultant, says that the opportunity to leverage both CEOS’ presence at GovTech as well as their solid reputation in the governmental market sector, played a large role in the positive reception to Powell Tronics’ offerings at the event.

“We benefited by our presence at GovTech in two respects. Firstly, the opportunity to amplify our branding was provided at the entrance and registration desks and secondly, the platform provided by being on CEOS’ exhibition stand allowed us to interact with a very targeted and niche market,” says Powell.

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