SA Rocks

This is quite interesting news and honestly was bound to happen at some point.

The largest winning purse in modern golf is going to be competed for right here in Sunny SA.

Here’s a bit of info:

The Sunshine Tour will make leading golfers choose between the world’s richest tournament in South Africa and Tiger Woods’ charity event in California from next year.

A new $10 million World Golf Championships event to be hosted by the tour was heralded by Sunshine commissioner Gareth Tindall on Tuesday as the launch of “a world tour” and “the most significant thing that has happened to South African golf in its history.”

Tindall, emboldened by Charl Schwartzel’s Masters victory on the 50th anniversary of Gary Player’s first green jacket, said the Tournament of Hope underlined the shift in player power away from the United States.

“The significance of what we’ve done is potential, and the U.S. tour might slag me for this, but essentially we are starting the world tour,” Tindall said. “It’s been a matter of time.

“I think what we’ve done could potentially create the impetus to start a world tour because Australia are certainly going to do what we’ve done, and Europe are going to have to do what we’ve done.”

The date and venue for the new WGC event — just the second outside the U.S. after Shanghai’s HSBC Champions — had not been finalized, Tindall said, but organizers were looking at the first week of December.

source

Popularity: 31% [?]

The TechCrunch Europas, the European Startup Awards for tech companies, has listed Cognician, a South African technology startup, as one of the top 11 Best New Startup’s in 2010.

I’ve met Patrick Kayton, co-founder and COO of Cognician and the guy is pure class. He is 100% humble, incredibly smart and very switched on to the world around him. With that said I am in the perfect position to say how incredibly happy I am for Patrick and his team. He has fought incredibly hard for his product, the vision and his company and deserves every bit of success that comes his way.

Some info on TechCrunch Europas:

The Europas serve to honour the best technology companies and startups across the web and mobile space. The awards span 22 categories and recognise and celebrate the most compelling technology startups, Internet and mobile innovations of the past year.

A little about Cognician:

Cognican, the original thought processor that presents content in the form of provocative questions, helping users to apply the author’s ideas to their own tasks, so that they can think better, further and faster, was selected through a process done by referencing TechCrunch’s database of tech companies on CrunchBase. This was followed by a month of online public voting that saw 33,126 votes being cast across all categories. The final award winners will be determined based both on popular votes received through website voting along with the results submitted by The Europas Advisory Board.

The award winners will be revealed at The Europas event which will be held in London this Friday, November 19. The evening will be attended by over 350 people from the cream of Europe’s startups, VCs and entrepreneurs along with industry leaders of the the tech startup and investor scene who will be presenting the awards to the winners.

A quick word from Patrick:

“Cognician has made great strides in 2010 with limited resources and see being nominated in the final 11 as testament to both the quality of Cognician and the work that our small team has put in,” adds Kayton.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Why do I want to tell you about the indieBerries blog?

Well firstly I know Che (the author). We studied together at Rhodes and embarrassingly I only realised this when I sought her out at this years SA Blog Awards (sorry Che!).

Secondly how could I not blog about a woman who’s name is Che?

Thirdly Che is South African and very proud of it.

Then she also has an online store where she sells her stuff over at Etsy. Do yourself a favour and check out the indieBerries store now.

I must admit that I had very little knowledge of what Che was doing before the blog awards. And I’m very glad that I am now a reader of her content. Che won two awards at this years blog awards; Best Blog Design and Best Personal Blog. I hear whispers that she also came in a close for the Best Blog of the year award. That went to very deserved winners (in my opinion) WatKykJy.

What I like about Che and her blog is the originality of her content. It’s not a blog filled with duplicated content, with slick images photoshopped by someone else and posted on her blog. It’s her content, her idea and herself on/in/all over the her blog and I really admire that. I know how hard it is to write original content. I struggle.

So I think that the moral of this story is simple – go and read indieBerries. It’ll do you good.

Popularity: 17% [?]

It is official and officially out of the bag; I’ve moved to Cape Town.

Now there is no more of a concrete reason to this move than a lifestyle change and the beginnings of a new business.

The move to Cape Town was not a difficult decision to make, let’s be honest it’s Cape Town.

Have a look at some of the scenery that I am privileged to view almost every day now that I have moved down to the Slaapstad:

Images courtesy of Gregor Rohrig

I’m hoping to now be more inspired to take photographs, blog more often and begin to explore the Western Cape more intensely and diligently.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I decided that to honour Nelson Mandela’s 92nd Birthday I would use my 67 minutes to continue building my door for Joburg Child Welfare. What began as 67 minutes turned in to an entire day affair that involved absolutely no television, absolutely no laptop, movies, internet browsing or anything distracting that involved a screen and isolation.

Instead, I turned on the radio, listened to music and sat and did my door.

Basically on completion, the door will be taken back by Joburg Child Welfare and auctioned off to raise money for them. I’ve joined 100 other people who were selected to create artwork from doors!

I’ve had a significant amount of help from Jennifer Wynne so she definitely needs to receive specific mention here. She has done much of the grunt work, design work and assistance in making sure I stick to my guns and get what I need done.

Here are a few photos:

Popularity: 9% [?]

Not only did the 2010 FIFA World Cup rock my world, it rocked South Africa, Africa and the entire world. That might seem like a sweeping statement however last nights match was apparently viewed by close to 3bn people the world over. Massive, massive, massive.

The opening ceremony was incredible as was the closing ceremony last night. But before I climb in to the praise and ask for some public apologies let me run through my World Cup experience.

I went to 4 live games. I attend 4 different stadiums. I partook in 2 different fanparks and visited many, many pubs over the World Cup Month.

The matches I saw

My first game was Denmark vs Cameroon at Loftus. The tickets to that game were provided to me by Brand South Africa and they kicked off my World Cup in serious style. I parked at Hatfield square in Pretoria, devoured a MASSIVE pizza at Cheeky’s pub and then walked up to the stadium. This was also the first time I’d been to Loftus so I was really getting the full experience.

On arrival I kept asking where exactly I should be going until eventually i was pointed towards the closed of section that encased gate 5. Gate 5 provides the entrance and exit for the box seats at Loftus. Yes, you are correct. My first experience of the world cup was in the warmth, comfort and style of box Loftus seats.

Here are some photos:

The second game I went to was the match between Greece and Argentine in Polokwane. The stadium is fantastic, there is very, very little to do around the stadium and that was the day that South Africa beat France. We watched that game at the Fanpark in Polokwane which was jam-packed with supporters.

Alas Greece did not win but I was able to see the great Argentinian team play:

The third game was an incredible experience that I will never forget and it’s all with thanks to a fantastic friend of mine!

Soccer City – the most incredible stadium I went to with the most amazing crowd and vibe. I was fortunate enough to be given VIP tickets to the Argentina vs Mexico Round 16 game. What an experience; the food, the seats and the experience were second to none. On top of that I was able to see incredible football played by both Mexico and Argentina but ultimately Argentina went through.

The Soccer City experience:

And then there was trusty Ellis Park and the Brazil vs Chile Round 16 game. It’s always a pleasure watching the greatest football nation in the world kick around the leather (or Jabulani as it’s known these days).

Here’s a couple pics:

The Apologies

I want to know if the good Editors over in that lovely Island commonly known as England are forcing their staff (read: Naysayers) to throw together some quick apologies? I doubt it. The best revenge is to live well, I was told once. Let’s be honest as South Africans we need nothing more than to let the world see – as they have – how well we have done in hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We ROCKED it, we were given the opportunity to show the world how fantastic our nation is and we grasped it with both hands and ran with it one foot in front of the next.

Personally I would like to see more people thanking Danny Jordaan and his incredible team for their hard work over a period of more than 6 years. They deserve as much credit as they can take in and they now deserve a break; A long and well-deserved vacation.

The Glory

Finally South Africa is not being seen the world over as the nation that overcame Apartheid. That is a great achievement to be known for and I am proud of my history but in the past 30 days (read: 6 years) we’ve been building towards changing the perception of the world. Hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup I truly feel that our nation can finally feel like we can bask in the glory of a job well done. We were great hosts as individuals, as towns, cities, provinces and as a nation. We partied hard, we played hard, we worked hard and we definitely supported this world cup like no event before it!

I am incredibly excited to see the nation finally jumping on the SA Rocks bandwagon, it’s taken about 3 years and over 1000 blog posts to get to where we are (Oh yes, and the World Cup!) but here we are. A proud nation. I am a proud South African yet again.

The Reality

The truth of this country is a simple one; We like to bitch, moan and look at the dark lining of silver clouds. And that’s where we’re headed. We’re headed in to the hangover period after one helluva party. It’s going to be tough and let me preempt the naysayers before they have the chance to chime in: There are many, many, many problems in this country that the world cup did not solve. There was a lot of money spent on the World Cup that could have been spent on building houses or hiring more police. That is all true. But nothing would have unified a nation like a World Cup. Nothing.

One foot in front of the next, that is how you walk down the road, one foot in front of the next. We start building a nation and the nation will help build itself.

Here are most of the photos from my World Cup experience. A big thanks to Brand South Africa and you-know-who for the tickets I was very fortunate to be given!

Popularity: 28% [?]

It is quite phenomenal to see that the bridge was assembled and then sort of slid over to connect with the other side of the road. Wow. Gillooly’s is apparently known to be the busiest interchange in the Southern Hemisphere so this is quite an achievement for the engineers and teams involved.

Click here if you can’t view the video above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NXZD-Ke8J0

Popularity: 9% [?]

I was sent this photograph by Adele via email. Thanks for the heads up and have a look at this fantastic National Geographic photograph by James Nachtwey.

Click to view the full image now!

Popularity: 9% [?]

The video below was originally distributed via email in powerpoint format (or at least that’s how I received it first).

I received this email about 10 times in the space of 3 days. Impressive by any viral email standards I think. If you haven’t seen the video yet, watch it. It’s not half bad and definitely sums up the way forward fairly well for this world cup.

Now, here’s the story behind the email as told by HomeComingRevolution:

After Bafana Bafana’s exit at the first round of the 2010 Soccer World Cup and the support that they had received from South African citizens, Rebecca Sehloho wrote a poem. The poem captured the importance of being fantastic hosts which goes beyond the soccer and
deeper into what the tournament is about.

Rebecca and her colleague Anthony Prangley harmonised their proudly South African voices with memorable images to inspire the nation to look at all the positive that has resulted from the World Cup. They saw the need to remind South Africans that it does not matter if Bafana Bafana didn’t win. It’s much bigger than that – South Africa has won!

Martine Schaffer, Managing Director of Homecoming Revolution said: “Anthony sent it to us on the morning after Bafana Bafana were eliminated. We realised the potential of this viral message and the stronger uniting message that it had for South Africans. A few emails were sent out and within the space of an hour, we were receiving it back into our inbox. The creators had no idea of how quickly this message would spread and we are thrilled that they chose to associate it with the Homecoming Revolution. As a nation we are seeing a growth in our identity with our soccer team, our country and our amazing achievements in hosting this World Cup. This is also stirring up heart-sore emotions amongst our South African Diaspora. We have so much to celebrate and this succinct, emotional, visual message sums
up how we are feeling. Proud.”

Let’s keep it going. The World Cup is about being friendly hosts and fantastic fans of all the teams. Each of us can do something. This is our chance.

Popularity: 12% [?]

SA web and mobile entrepreneurship is fast becoming very popular and soon to become relatively profitable for those getting involved. But there has been a distinct lack of support and overall difficult in attaining money for young (or old) tech entrepreneurs.

It seems as though there is a new player entering Africa and it goes by the name Seedcamp. In case you don’t know what Seedcamp is, here’s a quickshot about them:

Seedcamp, a European micro seed fund that invests in early stage startup companies, will be attending the Tech4Africa conference in August this year to identify African startups for potential investment and an opportunity to attend the Seedcamp Week programme held in September in London, UK.

Seedcamp is a programme created to jumpstart the entrepreneurial community in Europe, Middle East and Africa by connecting next generation developers and entrepreneurs from a network of over 400 top-tier industry mentors.

Here’s a more from the Press Release that I received:

A few selected African entrepreneurs will have a rare opportunity to pitch their businesses at a group of people connected to powerful investors, mentors and startups throughout EMEA, with one team being chosen to take part in Seedcamp Week, where its founders will gain exposure to investors and world-class mentors. 


Following Seedcamp Week, the companies who receive investment stay in London for three months to grow and develop their company, building key and lasting business relationships along the way to help them sustain a viable business.

African entrepreneurs that want to apply for the Mini Seedcamp Africa programme can apply through the Tech4Africa event Web site (http://www.tech4africa.com/seedcamp/). It is anticipated that 10 teams will be selected to take part in the Mini Seedcamp event at Tech4Africa.

The successful applicants will have opportunities to interact with Seedcamp mentors and to present their businesses to Seedcamp. A committee may choose one startup to attend Seedcamp Week in London.

It’s definitely interesting to see foreign investors entering SA and making the effort to boost our startups. I do have to beg the question: Where is the local wealth? Why are more local companies/seed funds/VC firms not pushing in to the local startup market and making their mark? Let’s use one another, our skills, ideas and money to make one another wealthy, profitable and sustainable.

Popularity: 6% [?]