‘We’ve been fanatically relentless in our pursuit to be the best-in-class, serve our clients, and add value to the industry and economy’: Mamela Luthuli of Take Note IT

“We use sophisticated penetrating testing and technical assessment tools to assess the business environment.”

Mamela Luthuli, founder and CEO of Take Note IT, is a well-respected business leader. Her entrepreneurial spirit took shape at the age of 14 while working at her mother’s grocery store on weekends. During this time, she learned what people needed, how to buy products they needed, sell them with passion, and make money to earn a living. Most importantly, she learned how to take care of the customers and give back to the community.

Being an entrepreneur and having the courage to go it alone ensued when she read Richard Branson’s book, “Screw It, Let's Do It”. It dared her to go on her own and follow her passion and the rest is history. Her fascination with technology started when Microsoft introduced the Internet. She knew then that this is the future. Therefore, she researched, read, studied, and became involved in IT and technology so much so that it just became her passion.

As a result, in 2007, Take Note IT was founded with the purpose to secure digital and physical assets by proactively mitigating the risk of hacking, vandalism, and theft, through engineered cyber security and IoT solutions. The company serves its clients across South Africa.

The Silicon Review reached out to Take Note IT’s Sandton headquarters and spoke with the Chief Executive Officer. Here’s what she said.

“At Take Note IT, we offer proactive protection and threat intelligence to help IT teams and companies monitor and proactively detect cybersecurity, digital & physical theft, and vandalism before it happens. There is no point in having security that investigates and reacts after the incident.”

Take Note products and services include both cybersecurity and IoT products and solutions. These include penetration testing, onsite technical assessment, security vulnerability scanning endpoint security, asset tamper detection systems, security advisory and reporting, MSSP, cyber user awareness, and security training. The company’s security operations center (SOC) offers a unique solution to businesses protecting their infrastructure, systems, and information 24/7. In short, the Take Note services are embedded in its values of integrity, innovation, commitment to quality, and customer excellence.

“Our early warning technology is integrated into one platform to ensure ease of use and detection. We don’t just plug and play. We use sophisticated penetrating testing and technical assessment tools to assess the business environment. We partner with clients to pilot engineered solutions and then deploy these solutions that integrate into your current infrastructure to suit business needs. Whilst there are multiple layers of protection needed to be based on the infrastructure, system, and information requirements, our solutions bubble wrap your digital and physical assets, giving you effortless monitoring and remediation.”

“Importantly, we have an innovation hub in which market intelligence, research, and product development sits. Technical experts drive conversation and product scoping and development. As part of our leadership approach, we have thought leadership sessions internally and externally to engage in hot topics and innovation in this sector and then tabling new development as a topic in our management agenda.”

Put simply, Take Note vigilantly and continually stay abreast of global market trends and changes. Importantly, it stays informed of the regulatory, legislative, social, and economic landscape. This enables the company to be proactive in responding to clients’ needs and challenges, as it acts as an advisor. Moreover, Take Note is a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) which means that it’s embedded in clients’ businesses and can continually assess challenges and opportunities to assist with their changing needs.

Facilitating Factors

In 2019, Take Note saw the opportunity to develop and innovate ‘early warning technology’ with an expanded and enhanced Asset Tamper Detection System (Active intelligent RFID with onboard computing power). With the high increase in vandalism and theft, (and knock-on loss to the economy of about R187 billion in the public enterprise sector alone) the current market products were too expensive, has limited range detection, and used multiple technologies through different platforms to activate the sensor, making protection complex, reactive and inefficient. Take Note’s Asset Tamper Detection Sensor is deployed to infrastructure to detect vandalism and theft and transmits to a base station (IoT receiver). The sensor has a “redundant communications” ability which means that when it is outside the range of the base station, it can still be detected using multiple technologies that are built into this one unit. It does this by automatically switching between other low-power communications technologies making this product globally scalable.

The Sensor can communicate up to 10 times the range of a normal cellular signal with an average of 30km from the base station. It has an onboard GPS ability to give the live location of the device. The sensor itself is resilient to interference such as jamming as it is built on security using old Morse code principles. The solution is modular and portable which means that you can deploy and add to and remove as per your requirements, making it cost-efficient.

“We have recently enhanced the solution with polyurethane plastic racks for underground cable protection to increase accuracy on position and improve efficiency for maintenance. The cost is competitive not only in terms of exchange rate fluctuations but is realized through supplier chain efficiencies as it is locally manufactured, making it available and accessible. Importantly, the product that is locally manufactured will serve not only the proudly local National Development Plan (NDP) but will serve to contribute to supplier development and job creation.”

Moreover, Take Note’s other initiative is ‘Cyber academy’—its passion for youth development and job creation. The shortage of skilled talent in this sector has led to the creation of the academy. Through the academy, the company mentors and trains young people directly from colleges and schools and equip them with skills.

“As a Level-1 BBBEE contributor that is 100% black female owned, we are proud of our healthy business and operating model with a strong, and highly specialized top team, highly skilled analysts and technicians, and a team of passionate people that will exceed your expectations. All this has enabled has to continue to partner with approximately 30 partners and clients contributing to our healthy financial performance and business sustainability. Our journey has been hard but we have never given up. We have been fanatically relentless in our pursuit to be the best-in-class, serve our clients, and add value to the industry and economy.”

“As a Level-1 BBBEE contributor that is 100% black female owned, we are proud of our healthy business and operating model with a strong, and highly specialized top team, highly skilled analysts and technicians, and a team of passionate people that will exceed your expectations.”