Selwyn Jackson obtained his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand. His Masters degree led him into the field of microprocessors and he has been involved in embedded engineering since then. These projects include POS terminals, mobile computers, RFID readers, auto identification products and various custom projects.
He was involved with the design and manufacture of the first POS terminal introduced into South Africa in 1990, and has seen many tens of thousands of terminals being deployed by FNB. He gained a deep insight into the associated banking systems, products, and technologies such as communications protocols, printer drivers, swipe cards, EMV smart cards, the reading of the magnetic ink on cheques, and the security requirements for PCI certification.
He designed his first mobile computer in the early 1980's and has been involved with the ongoing technology advances over the years that have been used in the various products. This has added additional technologies such as battery charging and backup systems, RF communications, modems, telephone interfaces and lightning protection. Highlights of these mobile computers are those used by the South African Police Services where most wanted criminals are checked via fingerprints.
His fields of expertise include hardware and software embedded engineering, as well as specific knowledge and expertise in various technologies such as cryptography, biometrics, barcodes, RFID, mesh communications, infra red controllers and movement detection. Software projects include phonetic name lookup, hashing algorithms, fingerprint matching, error correction and PDF 417 barcode image generation.
He was involved with the design of voter registration devices for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and 30,000 devices were deployed in South Africa. For voting day, these devices are preloaded with the full voters' roll of 23 million people. A unique feature is that this voters' roll is compressed, encrypted and searchable.
Selwyn joined Advantech in 1984, and saw the change of the company through various management buyouts and changes of ownerships to Natech, SyGade and then finally MaxID. He was the Technical Director for the past 25 years. At Natech, he was selected as one of ICL's distinguished Engineers.
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has a number of technical committees for the ISO standards. Selwyn is a voting member of a number of these committees.
Selwyn has now taken up a consulting role where he can lever off the wide range of technologies and experience that he has gained over the years.
In this role he has been involved with the design and installation of a number solar PV systems. These installations range from small backup systems to large off-grid systems. He has also had low power LED lights manufactured for these installations, and now supplies a range of low power LED lights.
Selwyn has continued supporting the Driver's Licence products which are being manufactured and supplied by ExcellentID (Pty) Ltd. These products provide a broad spectrum of products for the Auto ID market.
Another project that Selwyn is extremely proud of, is the thumbzup Payment Pebble. This device plugs into a smart phone to act as a POS terminal. It has a unique patented PIN entry method that is more secure than the traditional POS and ATM PIN entry methods. He has helped get this device certified by EMV and PCI and also by APCA in Australia. The Payment Pebble is being rolled out by ABSA in South Africa and as the FastPay device by ANZ in Australia.