The woman who inspired Dabiya Legacy

When we founded our company, Dabiya Legacy Technologies, we centred its values on an incredible woman whose name is the symbol of everything we stand for. The company derives its name “Dabiya” from a fond childhood nickname that I formulated as a toddler in reference to my maternal Grandmother whose official names were Tholwaphi NaVilakazi Nkosi. Dabiya raised me and her other grandchildren during a time when Apartheid was at its height and designed to cripple any prospects of a decent quality of life for black people in South Africa. She rose above her odds- she was intelligent despite having been deprived of an education and she was relentless in her pursuit to provide the best for her grandchildren. She was resilient, improvising, diligent, prudent and fierce in her refusal to succumb to the impoverishment that most black families were subjected to by their circumstance

The Dabiya Legacy Technologies company name is a tribute to her fighting will.  We strive to ensure that her personality carries through into our business DNA and culture. Fittingly, the values of Dabiya Legacy Technologies, which define our essence as well as our ethos, are:

• Respect for our investors as well as stakeholders;
• Integrity and responsibility as it applies to all our business areas and engagements with the communities that we touch;
• Innovation accompanied with the diligence to pursue the best possible partnership opportunities, research and development;
• Commitment to excellence and a constant pursuit of self-improvement and customer satisfaction;
• Resilience and patience to focus long term gains which are at the foundation of developing technologies and solutions that have a lasting social impact.

I guess it may be coincidence that we launch our company to the world on Woman’s month, considering that, the spiritual backbone and moral touchstone of our company is a strong woman. At DLT we celebrate diversity, we respect human rights and most importantly, we are a big supporter of women empowerment at all levels of our organisation. It is small wonder then that our executive team is also made up of some strong women. Our Vice President and head of legal, Lisa Ndlovu, is a dedicated legal professional with a passion for immigration reforms. Namhla Duma, Vice President of Talent and Corporate Relations, is an inspirational leader with an undying hustler’s spirit and a never-say-die attitude. These two ladies make up 50% of our executive team. Additionally, we have Duduzile Mofolo (Non-executive Director) and Rethabile Maphunye (Sales operations Intern) who make up the rest of the team. This essentially makes us a woman dominated company and it is something we are proud of. 

Starting a business during a pandemic is probably not the smartest thing to do, but we went ahead and did it anyway. I had a lot of people suggesting that the timing was off and perhaps I should hold back and stay in my previous job. However, I had a strong conviction that what we are embarking on is too important to delay. We were lucky enough to receive validation very early in the journey of establishing DLT. One of those was the ability to attract Shalin Pillai as co-founder and CTIO of the company. Shalin is a seasoned ICT leader, passionate about developing technologies and his experience is a big confidence booster for us and I believe will be so for the market as well. 

We have also managed to establish some really great partnerships with some leading technology providers globally who have thrown their weight behind DLT. Most importantly though, it is the customer validation that makes all the difference. We are on a journey to build an application that we believe will revolutionise how governments and citizens interact. We hope it will change how immigration officials interact with visitors. In this time of a pandemic, these issues are even more profound. Health issues are top of mind as countries grapple with how to re-open borders and how to deliver essential services to citizens. I guess this is the reason that we pushed ahead to establish our company during this difficult time. We realised very early in this journey that we are not just building an application, we are building a tool that will have a massive social impact. Reducing over-crowding and long queues while citizens apply for services, improving the delivery and reach of government services for Africans in the diaspora and bringing e-services to those wishing to those wishing to visit our shores, is no longer just a nice to have. It is a social security and health imperative. 

So in the spirit of Dabiya, she survived her odds to leave a footprint in the sands of time. We will survive these tough times and we hope that DLT will play a small role in helping Africa and the world to be a better place. We hope that through our application we can contribute towards enabling the Africa Free Trade Area, and in partnership with our clients deliver solutions that will enable social cohesion and sustainable growth.