SA Rocks

Fellow SA Rocktonian Max Kaizen wrote a piece this week about innovation in South Africa and it certainly spurred some heated debate amongst readers of this blog. I have to admit it also got me thinking because web-based innovators in South Africa are often called copy-cats for their apparent lack of originality.

So I decided that I’d do some searching to find some innovation and I registered as an attendee at the Futurex expo at the Sandton Convention Center. I figured that I’d go there and find lots of unique and innovative ideas that I could then report-back on and write about in my Technology Thursday post and I headed off yesterday morning to the most comprehensive showcase of products, services and solutions for big, small and home business.

My mandate was simple – find innovative products developed and/or manufactured in South Africa. I really wanted to find any technology that would promote the theme of SA Rocks and prove the critics wrong.

After spending three hours going through two large conference halls filled with hundreds of exhibitors I ended up with finding a grand total of zero innovative products made by us fellow South Africans.

What I did find was the large corporate giants showcasing their various software and broadband offerings and a whole bunch of smaller players showcasing products that were developed all over the world except South Africa.

It’s the first time also that I’ve seen Futurex promoting investment opportunities for countries like China and India and both countries had entire sections at Futurex that they could use to showcase their products to our market. This is fantastic to a point but not what I was looking for.

Futurex last year combined the expo with Linuxworld which I felt really helped promote the idea of Open Source and Linux to companies in South Africa. So much innovation is happening on the Linux front and for me the link between the two was very important and helped promote this innovation to big business.

After a disappointing expo my challenge now is to prove to the critics that South Africa is innovative and I’d like you to help me with this.

I need a list of home grown innovation so that we can shut the critics up so if you know of any innovative products, websites or services developed by South Africans that could be included in this list then please post a link to that website in the comments below.

Depending on the feedback received we might even be able to start a web directory on this site to help promote these home grown innovations so let’s get this thing going.

By Justin Hartman

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The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project was setup to provide children, in the developing world, with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves by creating a laptop with features created specifically for children.

This unique laptop, dubbed the XO, costs a mere $175 and is built from free and open-source software. The laptop sports a green casing, a liquid-proof keyboard and the Sugar operating system which is based on the popular Linux distro Fedora Core 6.

The OLPC project was founded by Nicholas Negroponte and globally the OLPC project is running a number of pilot projects, including in Africa. There are no official plans to bring the XO to South Africa yet however Antoine van Gelder, a South African developer contributing to the OLPC project, said that he hoped that a community of like-minded developers and educators would become involved in the project to get it adopted for use in South African schools.

In April the XO laptop made a very rare appearance at the Digital Freedom Expo in Cape Town and thanks to Tectonic and Twac I have included a demo video taken at the event so you can get a better feel for what all the hype is about.

For more information on the South African OLPC efforts visit the website at http://www.laptop.org.za/

– Justin Hartman

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Bullard’s heated sideswipe blistered the blogosphere ..and just blasted home another powerful reason why SA ROCKS! what?! Why in the world would I claim this as a positive about South Africa?

The constitutional right to freedom of speech that each of us enjoys today has been exercised. Regardless of whether that opinion is one we share or rail vehemently against – the RIGHT to express that opinion is something we enjoy in this country. For now.

Set in a global context, there are people are being jailed in Iran, Egypt, China, Zimbabwe for the rights we enjoy here. (For those impassioned enough to write in response consider lending your voice to the greater force for good, bloggers & ‘real‘ journalists lives are at stake for the right to banter as we do). Even if it’s hate speech or degrading polemic humans have a birthright to rant.

I heartily agree that most of the blogosphere is bogus bollocks – it’s reflective of life.

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter.” -Winston Churchill

But thanks to search engines and RSS I don’t need to come into contact with unnecessary swill enroute to the good stuff. We have choice what to pay attention to, rather than being offered a slim filter of what is deemed acceptable by those who know better than you (you swarthy heaving masses who need your untamed minds tranquilised for civility).

Like Wikipedia you have the right to put up whatever crap you like, but eventually knowledge neutrality smoothes out what is flaming unsubstantiated bullshite ..and oddly enough the result is an increasingly accurate view of reality to date.

So I have the right to be irritated by the article, but the only thing that could have done with editing was the peculiar association with the Virginia Tech massacre. The right to free expression had Seung-Hui Cho flagged by his professors for his violent and malevolent spewings in creative writing classes. He was a writer but not a blogger, and that fetid association sparked the flame of fury online because it was baseless.

I do certainly agree with the headline that cowardly cowering behind anonymity online allows for the depraved and sexually-frustrated to exercise their power to disseminate fear. But oddly very FEW bloggers take the route of anonymous expression – particularly because they AREN’T paid. Humans always have to have a What’s In It For Me angle. Like David Bullard, the majority of bloggers are out there to get attention. Within an Attention Economy this can translate into being paid if you prove your expertise. Most drop their blogs when they don’t get enough attention in reward, because they’re braindrainingly dull. Natural selection. But I digress.

We are so damn lucky to have the window of opportunity to evade being muzzled in this playground of paperless publishing. Policies of control instituted when people are reacting out of fear plays right into the hands of unhealthy dictatorship – political, religious or corporate. 1 order of thought-leadership not thought-control please.

This is not about oldskool journos vs bright young bloggers, it is about seeing the potency of words to shift attention. Those with the most power are those with the biggest audiences, simple. This is why entertainers & sportstars can command surreal salaries – they can capture and sustain attention. Traditional media has earned its sway. It is evolving, but still commands the lionshare and its effect proven today.

Bullard trippingly set a trap to test the bloggy waters & found his bait handsomely rewarded. It would have been a wonderful time to translate that attention: but wait, hark! ..you think Groogle hasn’t been sharing a tip or two with the man. LOL!! Ray and teamsters have been hard at work, and no doubt delighting in David taking on the bad cop role so eagerly. Sun Tzu, nay Machiavelli would be glowing with pride.

David Bullard is a court jester among the finest of the archetype, sparing no sacred cow.

Give thanks that you woke up in South Africa today, and blog for all you’re worth. Rock your bullhorn boys & girls. Who knows, you may even refine your skills and one day rise to the hallowed domain of the pressroom, I know you all secretly long for it, now dontcha?!

PS. check Bullard’s response on video (sorry bandwidth starved South Africans, but this one’s worth it)

PPS. use your powers for good and support freedom of the press, or join ISOC’s policy-making committee on digital freedom – one day this may affect you.

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In February of this year Dell Computers launched a website called IdeaStorm as a forum for customers to contribute ideas for future Dell product offerings. The IdeaStorm concept is a brilliant one in that for the first time a major computer manufacturer has allowed normal end-users to contribute to the production of the latest Dell hardware.

A quick visit to the IdeaStorm site shows that of the top 15 voted on ideas 8 of them are ideas relating to Linux and Open Source Software proving that Linux and OSS are starting to compete with the proprietary software giants in a very serious way.

The most discussed idea and feedback that customers gave was the need for Linux on desktops and notebooks and amazingly Dell listened. So much so that on 1 May Dell announced a partnership with Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, to offer the latest Ubuntu 7.04 release on select consumer desktop and notebook products.

These Ubuntu systems will be available in the coming weeks to customers in the United States with no clear date on when it will be available to South African consumers however this is seriously a move in the right direction and I may even consider buying a Dell for myself when they ship them here.

Thanks to Dell I am able to include the following video in which Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth talks about why he started Ubuntu, Linux adoption rate trends, how previous barriers to Linux adoption for mainstream users are improving, and more.

– Justin Hartman

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On Friday Telkom Media, a completely separate entity from Telkom Limited, demonstrated its Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platform which is a service that the company plans to introduce during 2008.

IPTV has become a common denominator for systems where television and/or video signals are distributed to subscribers or viewers using a broadband connection over Internet Protocol. Often this is in parallel with the subscriber’s Internet connection, supplied by a broadband operator using the same infrastructure but over a dedicated bandwidth allocation.

IPTV is one of the services that will be made available on the next-generation network that Telkom is rolling out by upgrading their current ADSL exchanges to ADSL 2+. Telkom’s current ADSL offering allows for a maximum download speed of 1 Mbps however ADSL 2+ allows for download speeds in excess of 20 Mbps which will make IPTV a reality in South Africa.

Telkom Media has applied for a pay-TV cable and satellite broadcast licence via a consortium that includes Telkom (66%), Anant Singh’s Videovision Entertainment (15%), Given Mkhari’s MSG Africa Media, WDB Investment Holdings (5%), a staff incentive trust (4%) and a broad based black economic empowerment shareholder (5%) which are investing R7 billion in setting up a subscription TV service aimed at the mass market, as well as several multi-platform technologies such as IPTV and video on-demand.
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Last week South Africa played host to two freedom fighters of the digital domain. Genius of stature both. Founders of culture-shaking organisations that are reshaping our reality: Prof Lawrence Lessig (Creative Commons) and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia).

[The heavyweight slammers with Sunday Times' Gregor Rohrig on his birthday]

I believe the SA Free Culture Tour (thanks Heather Ford & team of iCommons) has marked a turning point in ZA digital culture. It was huge fun, but there was also a huge message to get more active in policy-making and culture-building to ensure South Africa doesn’t slip into digital obscurity.

If you give a damn about the future of this country, especially if you intend to keep living here, I suggest a little listen to some of the recordings (the Sunday Times’ Special Report especially good). Unless of course you really enjoy limited bandwidth, paying staggering costs for the right to connect with other humans on the planet or other such injustices.. (there are those who enjoy S&M so I don’t want to assume, but I’d say the likelihood is that most of us find being a Telkom hostage horrifying).

We have more to be concerned about than the irritation of cost. The real tragedy of Telkom’s trickleflow of telecommunications to this promising young country, is that with the digital world accelerating and opening global connections of trade, education, distribution and capital flow, if we are left puttering in the slowlane it won’t be long before South Africa becomes a backwater. The braindrain will continue to pour out and Africa will be the poorer for their lack of foresight. [check Chilibean Paul throwing a solid klap at the parasitical parastatal]

We don’t need to whinge impotently about it though, there are a couple of things that we can do to respectfully suggest a longer-term vision.

Joining ISOC’s (Internet Society of South Africa) Public Policy group is a good start. Getting a proactive creative strategy mapped out for policy changes to help government serve us better is a great alternative to filling out all those tedious working visa forms. When you’re feeling particularly infuriated as your mailbox needs panelbeating from the last Telkom bill crashing in, take heart, you never know when you may find your self seated next to our Minister of Public Works Alec Irwin or Dr Ivy Matsepe-Cassaburi for dinner. You may have the opportunity to present that 3,8million signature strong petition you’ve collected through your site, politely, (with dessert to avoid indigestion).

If we all have a clear and constructive, practical approach to the problem, we may well offer our expertise as allies to help the government get Telkom out of the sticky patch of greed and seeming indifference to the future it has stumbled into. I’m going to take the Jimmy Wales’ default optimism stance, and believe that people inherently want to do good – even telecom monopoly excutives.

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Internet access is always a contentious issue in South Africa. We have a total population of nearly 50 million people however only 10.3% of our population have access to the Internet*. For so long South Africa as a whole has been limited, largely because we don’t have the infrastructure and it simply costs too much, but this is all starting to change.

Government’s stance and approach on broadband at the moment is going to change the information age in this country and there are a couple of projects which are really starting to take shape.

There has been a lot of coverage lately about the City of Johannesburg’s broadband network project. This R500 million project aims to provide broadband Internet access to the entire Johannesburg population, catering for more than R3 million people.

Over 180 private sector delegates met at an industry briefing recently with an aim to get clarity on the project scope. The contract will eventually be awarded to one service provider who will in turn provide the following services to anyone in Johannesburg:

• WWW Internet browsing,
• VoIP telephony,
• Television and radio over IP,
• Video-on-demand,
• e-government services,
• Free Internet zones and
• Virtual private networks.

There is no clear idea yet what technology will be used but talks of WiFi, WiMAX and fibre optics are all on the cards. The only major requirement is that connectivity speeds of the 1,644 square kilometre network should be no less than 2Mbps, providing a true broadband solution to the people.

In Durban, the Ethekwini municipality is offering free wireless Internet at 85 libraries. Members can make use of either the library computers or bring their own wireless laptops and get free Internet access. Membership to a library is free and your personal membership number is used to join the wireless network which really makes the whole system secure and easy to use.

Government can eradicate the accessibility and affordability issues we face with major projects like these and as this happens it will shape a new era in Internet usage by providing an invaluable tool to the people that previously hadn’t even heard about it.

Justin Hartman

* Statistical data provided by:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm#za

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Geeks, creatives, muzos & freedom fighters for the common good ..boys & girls of TALENT across this beautiful land.. this one’s for you >>

If crowdsourcing and wikis, collaborative creative projects and flickr have been a part of your life recently you want to pay attention to this. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales and Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig are going to be in South Africa this month!

The shape of our reality is changing, and the global economy is morphing and moving at a pace that is mindblowing from a macro level. These two men are at that leading edge. Driving its progress and monitoring its boundaries as it heaves and swells with the force of millions of people’s contributions to our evolving metabrain.
No mistaking, this is deep. If you want to interact realtime with true genius: I suggest you go to iCommons, check the program & if you aren’t in Cape Town, go book a flight, pronto >> you don’t want to miss this.

And besides – there’s a PARTY! afterwards on Friday 20th – I know all you Jozi guys need an excuse to come to Cape Town, this may be the one!

PS. even if you can’t come to join us – sharing is caring – we’d LOVE it if you grabbed the pic & link above & shared it on your site :: the more support we can show for this the better for ALL of US

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There’s a system that’s been around in this country since 2002 called the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) yet up until now it has remained largely behind the scenes due to setting the AFIS system up.

The R120-million system is supplied by France with the financial support of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) but in order for it to become operational 4,5 million fingerprint cards had to be configured on the computer system.

At present, fingerprints are matched by manually searching through the 4,5 million recorded prints but AFIS will be able to match fingerprints within 48 hours as opposed to the approximate 40 working days it takes to do so manually.

One of the added advantages of AFIS is the ID Tool machine which is manufactured locally by a company called Face Technologies.

The ID Tool machine is a small mobile device which plugs directly into the AFIS database and is being used by the SAPS to identify wanted suspects and criminals. By placing a suspect’s finger on the tiny touch pad, police can find out if they are wanted for any crime in a matter of seconds.

This week the ID Tool Machine was in the news largely all thanks to the efforts of John Robbie of Radio 702. On Tuesday, John asked businesses to phone in and sponsor an ID Tool machine at a cost of R22 500 each.

Radio 702 wanted to try and get South African businesses to sponsor 20 machines in total but by the end of the show a total of 78 machines had been sponsored which in turn saved the SAPS a total of R1,775,000.

In a country where crime is a huge concern it’s a great to see technology, the SAPS and businesses taking the right steps in trying to make this a better country for all.

Justin Hartman

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We all know that South Africans are just about the smartest people around (or do we?) right? Well here is a website that lists some South African inventions. I think it is a great idea and one that SA Rocks proudly supports.

Here are some of my favourite inventions:

Kreepy Krauly
The swimming pool vacuum cleaner was invented by Ferdinand Chauvier, a hydraulics engineer who came to South Africa from the Belgian Congo in 1951.

Pratley Putty
Pratley’s famous glue is the only South African invention that has been to the moon. In 1969 the putty was used to hold bits of the Apollo XI mission’s Eagle landing craft together. Krugersdorp engineer George Pratley invented his famous sticky stuff in the 1960s while looking for a glue that would hold components in an electrical box.

Dolosse
Dolosse are large, unusually shaped concrete blocks weighing up to 20 tons. The structures are designed to break up wave action and protect harbour walls and coastal installations. Designed by Eric Merrifield and first installed in East London harbour, they are now used all over the world.

Thanks to Khanya for notifying me of this post! For a more detailed look at the inventions visit sociolingo.

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