"It is a myth that individuals start companies. Teams start companies… especially innovation driven enterprises."
- Bill Aulet
At io we conceptualise, build and commercialise tech innovations that we believe will bring the power of the internet to the world in new and useful ways. Our ultimate vision is to harness our relentless curiosity and yearning for learning to become bold discoverers and problem-solvers for society.
Consent is a stealth-phase UK based client doing incredible things in the personal information space. Together we’ve built a highly scalable platform augmented by the Ethereum blockchain. Our experience in information security, cryptography, and complex DevOps environments has been crucial in the ongoing success of the project.
A RADIUS server that integrates deeper into applications. It has been tried and tested in production with major bursts of RADIUS traffic. RADIUS is an old school protocol, Tephra brings it closer to your modern application.
15 years of software development experience can turn your ideas into reality. We work with large multinationals and small startups to build scalable, amazing software. We don’t shy away from difficult problems. Speak to us if you’re deploying satellite solutions to rural Nigeria or building the next mobile retail experience in New York.
Ultimately, everything we build interfaces with people. From concept all the way through to quality assurance, we take note of why and how people use things and try to improve the journey. Most users are unaware of what a good user experience is, but everyone knows what it is not. We aim to allow your users to engage with you, blissfully ignorant.
Proper deployment and integration are what separates us from the animals. Our infrastructure is defined in code, saved in git repositories, perfectly reproducible, atomic and always scalable. Smaller projects get to run on our shared infrastructure and larger ones have custom setups. We are cloud agnostic but do prefer the Google cloud.
Passmarked was born out of our quest for perfection and love of quality. There was no way to determine whether anyone’s work stood up to standards and best practices so we created it. Passmarked scores how well your site works and a better score means a better performing site driving more sales and user engagement.
Design is an integral part of the process of conceptualisation, development and execution of ideas at io. It is not a separate process or an afterthought. io is home to a team of talented and dedicated designers who constantly try to raise the bar on interactive digital design, product design, user experience, branding and brand development, and other areas of design that bridge the gap between tech and humans.
Nprobe Collector was written in Go. It analyses and aggregates TCP traffic according to its source and destination IP addresses using the NetFlow protocol. The objective is to see how bandwidth was used and then potentially treat certain locations differently in terms of pricing.
As great believers in the collective power and value of the Internet, we are hedging our bets that Blockchain is the one of the world's greatest new technological revolutions - one that is here to stay. And we're not just watching from the sidelines, we are joining the revolution. We’ve built production systems on top of Ethereum, the fastest growing blockchain, and understand how the blockchain and crypto-currencies can enable previously impossible businesses.
Discovery has become too easy. 50 years ago, before the Internet and GPS, people explored the world around them, often walking somewhere just to see what was there. Rover is an experimental app that tries to reignite a sense of exploration and problem solving.
Can you find one of our fascinating locations when the only piece of information you’re given is how far away you are? Once you’re close enough we’ll tell you why you’re there.
App coming soon
We are looking for a Graphic / UX Designer. Our ideal candidate has knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator; the ability to create strong concepts; experience in web design and UX best practices; passion for innovation; and, should be able to push creative boundaries while staying within CI guidelines.
There are three fundamental challenges in making the Internet accessible to everyone: Internet capable hardware (eg. a mobile phone), network coverage and the cost of data.
We’re working with partners to provide cost-effective internet access and free life-changing content to the underdeveloped communities who need it the most.
The io team is a collective of diverse tech enthusiasts, from business visionaries, product innovators and coders to designers and marketing specialists. Together they think up new and useful ways to bring the power of the internet to society.
Breakpoint Vantage is a service provider to the financial services and telecommunications industry. Our design and communications team worked with them to develop a concise methodology to communicate their products and develop a design language for their business.
Embracing failure is an important part of growth. Hurt is a collection of software built to stress test our platforms to the breaking point. We use Hurt to identify our weaknesses, fix them and then Hurt ourselves again until we are the most scalable and resilient we can possibly be.
We are always looking for developers that have built business critical Node.js apps to join us. This is an opportunity to embrace your passion for new web technology and to be part of a fearless team.
Lava is a stadium grade Wi-Fi hotspot solution. Purposely built to support large amount of concurrent connections and the widest range smartphones. It includes a variety of authentication methods including Social Media Oauth logins, rich media such as video streaming to phones over Wi-Fi and is built to be customised to specific needs.
[email protected]
+27 (0)21 447 8855
31 - 33 Loop Street,
Cape Town City Centre,
8001
The io team is a collective of diverse tech enthusiasts, from business visionaries, product innovators and coders to designers and marketing specialists. Together they think up new and useful ways to bring the power of the internet to society. Meet the core team here:
Barry is the CEO and founder of io. A born coder and passionate entrepreneur, he built up the business over 15 years, from its early days as web design agency, into a leading tech innovations business with local and international clients. Barry continues to lead io as it moves into its niche as a virtual startup conceptualisation, development and launch entrepreneur. Barry has wide technical knowledge - from coding rare and complex languages to building vast and sophisticated WiFi and support networks - which he combines with his passion for business development in order to spur tech innovations for the local and international market. His dream is to build some of the best tech startups ever to come from South Africa, in order to create a more open, well-functioning and inclusive internet for all.
Jonathan is the Chief of Operations at io and a product specialist with vast experience in corporate and developmental technology across Africa. In addition to being a seasoned software developer, Jonathan has a focus on mobile and building technology for emerging markets. He has worked on award-winning projects to bring mobile connectivity to remote corners of Africa. Jonathan is also an expert on user experience design, web applications, digital marketing and digital strategy, being a big picture guy who can understand all sides of a job and guide his teams on delivering the best solutions to complex problems. A “sailor trapped in a nerd’s body”, Jono’s greatest passions after tech are sailing the seven seas and spending time with his equally entrepreneurial wife.
Jacques Kleynhans, io’s creative director, is a graphic artist with a flair for creating beauty that is capable of bringing tech to life. Jacques has 13 years of experience in many creative fields including animation, illustration, layout, branding and ultimately, web design. He has produced work for corporate clients ranging from DSTV, M-Net and Paramount Pictures to Coca-Cola and 5FM.
An academic at heart, Jacques completed his BA in Visual Communication Design at The Open Window School of Visual Communication in Pretoria, and went on to lecture Interaction Design at the Cape Town Creative Academy. Jacques has been an exhibiting fine artist for 7 years and is represented by the Kalashnikovv Gallery in Johannesburg and Berlin. His work, which is always eclectic, modern and designed for humans, has been featured in creative industry blog Between10and5. View more of his work on his website.
Liesel works to create a happy and stimulating working environment for the developers and creatives at io. A coffee and design snob at heart, she ensures that the office looks good, that her Devs get good quality coffee, and that internal systems and processes are in place to ease workflow. A big part of her job is to drive a healthy company culture that prizes self-learning, creativity, problem-solving and emotional well-being, and to ensure that io is a place where talented people want to work and deliver good work. In addition, Liesel manages client relationships and organises regular industry meetups. Starting in the core team almost a decade ago, Liesel has been instrumental in seeing the company grow from a small operation to a tech entrepreneur with respected international and local clients and innovative internal projects. In her free time, Liesel is a passionate Iger and fashion and design enthusiast.
Johann is a globally recognised DevOps engineer who leads the team of coders at io to build innovative in-house tech startups. In his early 20s he became the first of only a handful of designated Google Developer Experts in Africa, leading him on many adventures, including speaking opportunities at local and international conferences and many trips to Silicon Valley. Johann loves supporting the local Cape Town tech scene and sharing knowledge with other developers. He recently contributed to a book on the Google App Engine. His core specialisation is Google Cloud, but he also delves into systems architecture, big data, web and mobile app development, and network administration. He is currently the lead developer on Passmarked.com, an io-led startup that is soon to launch in Silicon Valley. He lives by KISS, loves data, and when he’s not coding for work, he codes for fun. See more on his work with Google: View it here and here.
Rian manages the development team at io with a supportive approach - he does not believe in micromanagement, but rather in promoting a culture of self-starting, self-learning and open dialogue. The trained engineer, who holds an M.Sc in Electrical Engineering from UCT, made the crossover from hardware to software more than ten years ago and has never looked back. He specialises in back-end development and systems architecture, but the nature of his job - as the leader of a diverse group of developers who code anything from PHP to Go and Laravel - also forces him to be a jack of all trades when it comes to code. When he’s not behind his desk typing, he puts his hands to equally good use as the lead guitarist in a rock ‘n roll band.
Ant is a multi-skilled software engineer who champions open source at io. His commitment to open source stems from a passion for free software, digital rights and civil liberties, and at it io he is in charge of the stewardship, maintenance and quality control of io's open source projects. He always ensures that these projects are well-documented, easy for the public to contribute to and do what they are supposed to. Ant loves working with colleagues to design and build new systems and recently focused mainly on Node.js, Docker and various IaaS and PaaS services. Ant is also big on full stack development and knows a wide variety of programming languages. He enjoys taking the time to mentor new or less experienced colleagues. Visit Ant’s website to see what he gets up to outside the office.
Retha oversees corporate and tax compliance at io. She is an admitted member of the Cape Bar Council and serves on the io and Passmarked Advisory Boards. She specialises in advising tech startups such as io and its sister company Passmarked.com on corporate and tax compliance, exchange control regulations, company registration outside of SA and intellectual property law. When she’s not working in a toga, she can be found her on her surfboard catching some waves around Cape Town.
We are looking for a Graphic / UX Designer. Our ideal candidate has knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator; the ability to create strong concepts; experience in web design and UX best practices; passion for innovation; and, should be able to push creative boundaries while staying within CI guidelines.
We need a highly motivated individual who takes pride in their work, can deliver work of a high quality and can work within a team as well as on their own. Advantageous skills include HTML5, CSS3, and Adobe After Effects.
If you are a designer interested in web interface but like doing work where you get to be creative and use multiple skills, push yourself, work hard and learn a lot, then this is for you.
If you are interested please send your portfolio to [email protected]. Include any relevant experience and information on projects that you have worked on. If you partake in any online communities such as Behance please include your relevant details. Look forward to meeting you!
We are always looking for developers that have built business critical Node.js apps to join us. This is an opportunity to embrace your passion for new web technology and to be part of a fearless team.
At times, the position does involve direct client communication whose whims will have to be dissected, interpreted and executed. You will also get the opportunity to be part of a team of web developers and work on some other interesting projects.
You will be able to enjoy a relaxed working atmosphere, with free desk space, cafe style tables, breakfast foods, good coffee, flexible working hours and great people.
If you are interested please send us your details to [email protected]. Please include any relevant experience and information on projects that you have worked on. If you partake in any online communities such as StackOverflow or if you have a Github profile, include your relevant details.