Data Centre Avit Angola Note: This project has been implemented on a much smaller scale, due to the difficult investment climate in Angola.There is a high market potential for ICT solutions in Angola, especially in the booming offshore and mining sectors. Also, service sectors of the economy (banks, insurance companies) are large clients of the ICT sector. The actual ICT sector in Angola exists of basic shops where soft and hardware are being sold. If a large customer wants something special, experts from Western Europe or the Americas are flown in to do their trick and flown out again. This business model results in a lot of after-sales problems. When the hardware or software does not perform anymore, the expert has already gone. A negative side effect of this practise is that Angolan ICT specialists will not develop their skills.The partners, Avit Systems B.V. from Nieuwegein (the Netherlands) and Switch and Plug from Luanda (Angola), propose to start up a joint venture which will invest in the first data centre in Luanda, that is open to different companies who can hire space on the servers to have the software run that can be custom-made by the joint venture or a standard solution. In this way, small- and medium-sized enterprises from Angola can profit as well from the latest cloud software that is available for leasing on these servers.As the data centre has to deliver first class (Cisco certified) services, the joint venture will constantly train postdoc students from both the Diaspora (former Dutch asylum seekers) as from local universities. The students will get an official level qualification from Cisco which gives them enormous job opportunities. For the moment, as the joint venture will be the only Cisco certified provider, the students that are not going to work for the joint venture will become the joint ventures customers in most cases. As the development of Cisco systems goes fast, the employees of the joint venture will also have to be trained continuously and take exams to keep the certification. A considerable amount of high category personnel will be hired. The economy of Angola will receive a boost by this project.Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)The joint venture will train a lot of people and enhance their employability by these trainings. They will follow the guidelines for "green ICT initiative".The personnel will receive very high salaries and good fringe benefits as they are the main capital of the company.Impact•	Employment and working conditionsA massive amount of training will be given to the employees. This will continue as for a Cisco certificated engineer, every year the employee has to pass the exam online with Cisco training centre. This results in a very high employability for the employee.Salaries will be 4 to 5 times the minimum wages per category of employee. Furthermore, a package of fringe benefits is offered, above the obligations by Angolan law that are high for African standards.-	Holiday fund of 10%.-	Salary savings plan.-	Personal development plan, revised every 6 months.-	Competencies based HRM.-	40 hours workweek.-	21 paid holidays per year.•	Innovation / Transfer of knowledgeThere is no commercial data centre and cloud services are not available in Angola. The real innovation according to the applicant is the "total solution" that the joint venture can give for ICT needs of Angolan companies. Rack space and software can be leased and the joint venture can study the customers' needs to give tailor-made solutions.•	Chain effectsIn fact only energy will be purchased as a raw material for the data centre. Some office supplies will be necessary.The local customers are mainly businesses. The impact of having a world class Cisco data centre plus certified Cisco engineers on the ground, on a 24/24 hours and 7 days a week basis, will change the ICT picture of Angola. When this project turns out to be successful, other databases will follow, both by the partners as by third parties, although Avit Systems B.V. is not very afraid of copycats as it takes a long time and hard work to get Cisco certification.As the joint venture will also introduce VOIP video meetings, and IP TV, businessmen have to travel less for meetings or to see developments in other parts of the country, which is very important in Angola. The country is very large, roads are not yet good and in the Luanda area there is a permanent traffic infarct from 6 in the morning until 8 at night.•	Impact on the sectorThis project will set an example in the ICT market in Angola. The days that expats will be flown in to do a ICT job will be over. This will oblige other companies to do the same as customers are less and less willing to wait when a machine is not working.•	EnvironmentAlthough a data centre uses a lot of energy, the partners will try to avoid an excess of energy waste. They will adopt a special green ICT strategy that bundles tasks of different servers to have some others temporally switched off. They are also studying the possibility of evaporative cooling (cooling is the highest individual energy consumer) that uses only one-sixth of the energy of conventional cooling.•	Position of womenAlthough the joint venture is willing to employ women as employees, it is still rare to find them in this sector. They plan to hire 6 women on a total of 22 jobs. To start up a data centre in Luanda of which the available capacity will be rent out to customers who will purchase consultancy and software solutions from the joint venture.