Byte Orbit Celebrates a Year of Success: Awards, New Products, and Team Excellence

As we close out 2023, we must seize this opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable achievements of our incredible team, both big and small. We’d like to reflect and humbly brag about our dedication, hard work and unwavering spirit, which have been instrumental in driving our success this year.

Exciting updates at Byte Orbit HQ

We started this year with a bang, by launching our company values. Our executive and managerial teams worked tirelessly together to brainstorm, assess and define the values that resonate with our mission and culture. To introduce the values to the organisation, we conducted interactive workshops where Orbiters actively participated and learned about the values.

These workshops helped our colleagues become familiar with the values and find ways to embody them in their work. These sessions were the driving force behind creating Stellar, a platform that encourages a culture of appreciation and celebration. Stellar was born out of our Values Vortex Hackathon and has become a vital tool in fostering a positive work environment where our values shine through.

After launching our company values, we were determined to do more than just have them as words on our walls. So, we decided to take on a weekend hackathon called the Value Vortex Hackathon. The aim was to build a platform that would inspire and engage individuals who embody our values. And let me tell you, we love a good challenge! In just one weekend, we built Stellar from scratch, and after a few more enhancements, it became a fully functioning platform that our Orbiters use every day. This is just one example of our innovative spirit!

As a development partner with over 20 years of experience, we've always been committed to crafting award-winning products for our clients. Now we're excited to take things to the next level by developing our own products. While we can't reveal too much yet, we can guarantee that you won't want to miss what we have in store!

Talking about award-winning products, we entered into the New Generation Awards under the ‘Most Innovative App Developed by Agency’ category and we're thrilled to announce that we won silver! Winning this award was a moment of immense pride for all of us, and we couldn't have done it without our dedicated team.

And if that wasn't enough, we've also received the prestigious ISO 27001 certification for our information security practices. This certification is the global benchmark for security and shows that we're at the top of our game when it comes to protecting your data.

Amit, our founder, had a dream twenty years ago that set his heart ablaze and fueled his passion: to create a software development company that would revolutionise the industry. Fast forward to today and we are proud to have nearly 100 passionate and skilled Orbiters who create products that put our customers at the centre of everything we do. Our growth and success have been nothing short of phenomenal, and we have Amit to thank for his visionary leadership. As he passes the baton to our new CEO Greg, we are excited to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation and delivering products that showcase our commitment to excellence.

What have our project teams been up to?

We’re very proud of the progress we’ve made over the last year and want to share it with you!

Shyft:

We’ve proudly worked on the Shyft project for the last eight years and have had the opportunity to further develop, enhance and deliver an award-winning global money app that allows users to buy forex, invest in top companies, make international payments, travel, shop and so much more!

Here’s what we did in 2023:

We took a giant leap forward by integrating with Apple Pay, which means that all iOS users can now link their Shyft cards to Apple Pay, making card payments more convenient than ever before.

We have also expanded the Preloaded Partners feature by adding two renowned financial institutions, Coronation and Old Mutual. This means that users can now effortlessly transfer funds to their Coronation or Old Mutual offshore investment portfolios directly from Shyft. We believe that this feature will revolutionise the way people invest their money and make it more accessible to all.

We've also made some significant improvements to the card view and functionality, as well as the card ordering process, making it more user-friendly and visually appealing. We understand that the little things matter, and we want to ensure that every aspect of the Shyft app is designed with our users in mind.

We have extended our support hours and launched Whatsapp support, so you can now reach out to us whenever you need assistance and get real-time support.

Last but not least, we are thrilled to announce that we have added additional exchanges to the platform, which means users can now invest in 40 Deutscher Aktien Index (DAX) and 100 London Stock Exchange (LSE) exchanges. This is a significant milestone for us, and we are proud to offer our users more investment options than ever before.

Curious to find out more? Download the Shyft app now and experience the power of the global money app at your fingertips!

Investec FX App:

Investec recognised the increasing competition and client demands of forex mobile apps. Their forex capabilities existed on their web portal, but not on their Investec mobile app. That's where we came in.

We collaborated with various teams within Investec to design and deliver a world-class international transactions experience. With the new and improved Investec mobile app, users are now able to create and manage an international beneficiary, make an international payment to an international beneficiary, make a transfer between accounts (ZAR and FCA), and receive an international payment.

Experience a whole new level of convenience and efficiency with Investec's forex capabilities on their mobile app.

NEXT176:

NEXT176 is Old Mutual's strategic partnerships and ventures unit, aimed at creating disruptive and sustainable businesses that reshape the landscape of emerging economies and underserved communities. We’ve been tasked with tackling two problem areas: debt management and jobs.

On the debt management side, our challenge is to enhance the purchasing power of low and middle-income South Africans. On the jobs side, our challenge is focused on validating Craft's market positioning and developing a solution that reimagines the modern way of work. Craft is a free platform for freelancers and entrepreneurs that streamlines tasks like quoting, client management, payment tracking, transaction processing, and income protection.

While we’re still in the early stages of product design, we cannot wait to share more exciting updates as we reshape the landscape of emerging economies and underserved communities.

AutonoSky:

AutonoSky is making significant strides in the aerial technology industry in South Africa with its cutting-edge solutions that are making a positive and sustainable impact on human lives. This year has been a game-changer for the team as they have expanded their offerings to include CAA-accredited training courses and the opportunity to invest in a heavy-lifting drone with five different payloads, each with a specialised function.

To keep up with their growing portfolio, we’ve given their website a complete facelift, providing readers with a seamless and intuitive experience when exploring their products and services. With an abundance of new content, users can now delve deeper into the details and make informed decisions about how AutonoSky can help them achieve their goals.

Don't miss out on the chance to be a part of this exciting journey! Head over to their website to find out more.

Flyte Zone:

We’re very proud to provide a few updates on our very first Venture product. Flyte Zone is a drone management platform that equips you with future-facing tools, enabling you to simplify, streamline, and enhance your remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) operations.

The founders, Amit and Matt, recognised a gap in the industry where preparing and logging drone flights, as well as providing audit reports, was a tedious task loaded with paperwork. Flyte Zone was developed to help teams streamline their documentation and stay compliant with a one-click audit report.

Over the last year, we were able to complete crucial features such as audit reports, meeting minutes, and battery charge logs, ensuring seamless operations and data integrity. We have also dedicated a significant amount of time to improving the quality of life across the platform. The Flyte Zone's UX was already great, but the improvements we have made over the last year are truly remarkable. It's almost like a brand-new product!

By focusing on both big feature work and overall platform improvements, we have given Flyte Zone a huge advantage that we plan to leverage to the fullest going forward.

Technologies we’ve dabbled in:

Besides dabbling in several technologies for internal purposes, we’re proud to have experimented with Flutter. Flutter is an open-source, cross-platform mobile development framework developed by Google.

We embarked on a Flutter proof of concept (POC) to rebuild one of our applications, a decision stemming from three main reasons. Firstly, the employment of Flutter for the app rebuild yielded several noteworthy benefits. Primarily, it reduced development costs by streamlining the requirements for mobile developers. Secondly, it ensured enhanced consistency across diverse platforms, removing the need for specialised platform-oriented development. Lastly, Flutter substantially elevated overall productivity by freeing developers from the repetitive task of duplicating features across distinct platforms.

Read more about our Flutter POC on our website.

As we close out 2023, we are filled with gratitude for the incredible team at Byte Orbit and the remarkable achievements we have accomplished together. Through dedication, hard work, and unwavering spirit, we have transformed our company, developed and launched products, and earned prestigious awards. We are excited to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation in 2024 and beyond.