Johannesburg-based team Authentic8 has been named winner of a competition run by Airports Company of South Africa and Wits University’s Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct for its identity management authentication solution.
Airports Company of South Africa and Tshimologong earlier this year launched a search for disruptive and innovative developers to come up with a suitable Single Sign On (SSO) access management system.
The competition has now concluded, with two finalists taking part in a hackathon. Authentic8 was named the winner, having delivered an SSO solution built on the OKTA collaborative development platform. The team received ZAR150,000 (US$11,000) and will undergo a seven-month incubation period at the Tshimologong Precinct to continue developing its solution. Team Wakanda, with its “bringing it together” solution, was second.
Shaun Randles, enterprise development manager at Tshimologong Precinct said the hackathon set out to streamline and develop a single system to manage access and authentication for all systems within the Airports Company South Africa environment, and to discover a new generation of technology-driven skills.
“Part of the role of the precinct is to support and grow the next generation of talent. We identified 50 impressive teams through the hackathon process, all of which had innovative solutions to the Airports Company South Africa access management system challenge,” he said.
Humbulani Netshieneulu, Airports Company of South Africa socio-economic development (SED) senior manager, was delighted with the outcome and said the company was excited about the Authentic8 solution.
“The prototypes presented by both winners demonstrated an innate understanding of the challenges we face and the best possible solution for our access management. Using a platform for enterprise blockchain, Airports Company South Africa is confident that together with Tshimologong’s guidance, Authentic8 will deliver a valuable solution,” he said.
