Joe Smith, acting Chief Director Information Technology, writes: 

Having all staff members safely back after the festive season is fantastic. I hope that all of you had a good rest. I know some staff members were on standby, such as the TAS staff and the staff taking care of the data centres. Eskom has mostly been good to us, with very few load-shedding instances over the holiday period.  

Looking back, 2023 was a unique year in many ways. We had enormous challenges with massive projects running simultaneously, such as load shedding and the risk it poses to our data centres, the resignation of our chief director, the announcement of our new chief director in December 2023, and several retirements with an accumulative loss of more than a century of institutional knowledge.    

We bounced back resiliently with all the challenges IT had to deal with. Our staff stayed motivated and worked with dedication, harder than ever to keep the lights on. I learned from 2023 that resilience isn’t a single skill. It’s a variety of skills and coping mechanisms. To bounce back from bumps in the road and failures, you should emphasise the positive. – Jean Chatzky.  

This is what we did at IT and will continue doing at IT.