Volume 65 December 2026-January 2026 : Business
Journeying Into Cyber Space
Author : Ludo Chube
Loago Raditedu is no Information Technology (IT) guru. In fact he never studied anything remotely related to the subject. Yet most of his professional life seems to be characterised by a lot of IT inspired successes and experiments.
In 1996 when there was hardly any internet service in Botswana, Raditedu already had a functioning email address on compuserve.com. “IT has always been untapped inside of me,” he quips.
That probably explains why during his stay with the Botswana Exporters and Manufacturing Association (BEMA) saw him establish an e-card and turn their website around. What started as a tourism project soon expanded to a broader Botswana website directory covering every sector from tourism to magazines and other publications to banking.
Initially the inspiration was from his involvement in the Travel Ventures International (TVI) network which deals primarily with tourist attraction areas. “I realized that Botswana was not included so I wanted to come up with a tourism portal for people to access information, book directly and pay online.”
Registered as Botswana Travel, Loago decided to expand the website from just focusing solely on hotels to including all tourism packages. “Usually when people book online to visit our tourist attraction areas they depend on booking portals from South Africa.
They do not book directly with Botswana lodges and hotels,” says Raditedu in an interview. That is essentially where he comes in. His portal will be a direct link for people to have direct access of all Botswana websites. “This will provide visitors, investors, potential buyers and people in the Diasporas readily available information about Botswana.”
Raditedu’s target includes Non-governmental Organisations, government departments, embassies, United Nations agencies, Southern African Development Community (SADC), and Southern African Customs Unit (SACU).
He received an overwhelming response from Botswana ambassadors who are excited at showcasing Botswana information to the international community.
Raditedu is working on bringing the government portal on board as well as talking to libraries, printers, publications and publishers about the idea of turning their books into e-books so that they can be easily read and accessed online.
Raditedu intends to take this idea even further, establishing website directories for neighbouring countries then spreading it further to other countries in the SADC region covering just about every sector. In his own words Raditedu says: “This is the first of its kind,” and his enterprise shows that one does not need to be an IT expert in order to succeed in IT related activities.