TechCentral TechCentral (main feed)

Interview: Denel Spaceteq engineer Jonathan Lun

Loading player...
On this episode of the TechCentral podcast, we chat to South African space engineer Jonathan Lun about being named winner of Singularity University's Global Impact Challenge Southern Africa for 2017. As part of his prize, Lun will travel to the US, where he will interact with some of the world’s greatest minds to create moonshot innovations with a focus on climate change. Lun, who has a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, where his dissertation focused on "plasma thrusters" (vacuum arcs), won the prize for an audacious plan to use the metals in asteroids in order to bring them to Earth and mine them for valuable resources. Listen as Lun explains how it works, and also talks about his involvement in government's flagship EO-Sat1 Earth observation satellite programme.
24 May 2017 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

TCS | Donovan Marsh on AI and the future of filmmaking

Award-winning South African film director Donovan Marsh has pivoted to artificial intelligence filmmaking and believes generative AI tools could fundamentally reshape how movies are made – and who gets to make them. Marsh, whose 30-year career includes directing the Hollywood submarine thriller Hunter Killer starring Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman,…
7 Apr 52 min

TCS+ | Vodacom Business moves to crack the SME tech gap

Everyone agrees that small and medium enterprises are the backbone of the South African economy. But the reality on the ground tells a different story – too many small businesses are still running on spreadsheets and WhatsApp, locked out of the tools that could help them compete. In this episode…
5 Apr 34 min

TCS | MTN’s Divyesh Joshi on the strategy behind Pi

MTN South Africa has launched Pi, a digital-only mobile operator that runs on MTN’s network but operates as a standalone brand, offering contract-free mobile and home 5G connectivity through a single app, with no call centres, no credit checks and no lock-in. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, TechCentral…
1 Apr 21 min

TCS | Anoosh Rooplal on the Post Office’s last stand

The South African Post Office has been in business rescue – a form of bankruptcy protection – since July 2023. Business rescue practitioners Anoosh Rooplal and Juanito Damons have made it clear to parliament that the entity will not survive liquidation unless a R3.8-billion bailout is received soon. With some…
27 Mar 27 min

Meet the CIO | Healthbridge CTO Anton Fatti on the future of digital health

Anton Fatti, chief technology officer of HealthBridge, says the doctor-patient relationship must remain at the centre of digital transformation in healthcare, even as AI reshapes how medical practices operate. Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you by NTT DATA, Fatti said AI and cloud computing are…
23 Mar 45 min
All episodes