Bandwidth Barn News & Discussion Board

Cape Town, South Africa, March 2009 – The World Economic Forum recently announced the list of Young Global Leaders for 2009 and 9 South Africans were bestowed with the honour of gracing the list. Every year the World Economic Forum identifies a group of extraordinary young individuals from across the globe. Together, they form a powerful team to help shape up the future of the world. 

The Forum of Young Global Leaders has a comprehensive selection process for identifying and selecting the most exceptional leaders 40 years of age or younger. The Young Global Leaders of 2009 were chosen by a selection committee of esteemed international leaders chaired by H.M Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The South Africans chosen for this prestigious community include Brent Stirton, Senior Photographer of Getty Images; Adria Greene, Founder and CEO of Lawpoint; Alan Knott-Craig; CEO of iBurst; Vinny Lingham, CEO of Yola formerly Synthasite; Anthony Miller, Co-Founder and MD of Lightstone; Euvin Naidoo; President and CEO of SACCA; Jack Vuyo, Co-founder and CEO of Empowerdex; James Wanjohi, Head of Branson school of Entrepreneurship; and Marianne Knuth, Founder of Kufunda Village.

These South African young leaders join an illustrious group of honoreers this year, including Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher, Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Facebook), Jessica Biel (actress) & Chris Martin (lead singer for Coldplay).

Anthony Miller is the Managing Director of Lightstone, a specialised GIS (geographic information system), IT and knowledge management company. Miller started his career as an engineer with Anglo American before spending nearly six years with McKinsey and Company as a strategy consultant. He left McKinsey to found Lightstone at the end of 2005. Miller has a degree in engineering from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. 

Adria Greene is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lawpoint, a provider of outsourced legal services in English, French, German and Portuguese to leading corpoations and law firms.  She is an active member of a number of professional organizations and has provided pro bono counsel in matters of microfinance, the arts and gender equity.  She is qualified to practice law in the United States where she is admitted to the New York State Bar. Greene previously practiced corporate law in New York City. She received a Bachelor of Art in International Relations from Wellesley College and a Juris Doctor from The University of Michigan Law School. She also holds a diploma in Management from the University of Cape Town.  

Vinny Lingham is the CEO and Co-founder of Yola formerly SynthaSite, a leading free Website builder based in San Francisco. Lingham is a seasoned entrepreneur who has received global acclaim for founding a number of businesses, including the award-winning Search Engine Marketing company Clicks2Customers. Lingham has been honoured as a high-impact entrepreneur by Endeavor Global, an internationally renowned venture philanthropy organization based in New York City, and was the winner of the Top Young IT Entrepreneur in Africa Award in 2006. He is a prominent industry speaker and recently raised $25m in funding for Yola formerly SynthaSite. He studied Information Systems at the University of Cape Town and holds an honours degree in Electronic Commerce from the University of South Africa.

Brent Stirton is a Senior Staff Photographer for the assignment division of Getty Images, New York. He specialises in documentary work and is known for his alternative approaches. He travels an average of ten months of the year on assignment. Stirton’s work is published by National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, The Discovery Channel, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, The London Sunday Times Magazine, Le Express, Le Monde 2, GQ, Geo, Stern, CNN and many other respected international outlets. Stirton also works for the Global Business Coalition against Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He has been a long time photographer for the World Wide Fund for Nature, shooting campaigns on sustainability and the environment. He also works for the Ford and Clinton Foundations and the Nike foundation.

James Wanjohi is the Head of the Branson School of Entrepreneurship, the first Institution worldwide that Sir Richard Branson (serial entrepreneur chair of the Virgin Group of Companies) has lent his name to. Wanjohi set up the school in 2006. He is mandated to identify potential entrepreneurs, incubate them and fund them aiming to create more jobs, promote entrepreneurship and wealth creation. This is the first school on the continent set to hone entrepreneurship. Prior to joining the Branson School of entrepreneurship, Wanjohi set up Alpha Strategy consultants where he worked with numerous Public, Private and NGO clients. He is a member of the Lions Club of Illovo. Wanjohi holds an MBA in Finance and a Masters in Economics (Business economics) from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, India.

Marianne Knuth is the Founder of Kufunda Learning Village in Zimbabwe. Kufunda is a learning centre that helps rural people to build self-reliance at multiple levels: financial, practical, material, social, psychological, and spiritual. To enable communities to survive Zimbabwe’s challenging socio-economic environment, Kufunda demonstrates how to use environmentally and economically sustainable living practices so that each community can take care of itself and not be dependent on the failing system to cover its basic food, health, and educational needs. She has recently moved to South Africa from Zimbabwe as a partner of Reos Partners, an international organisation specialising in facilitating innovation in complex systems, in particular working to support and enable multistakeholder collaboration. Marianne holds a masters degree in international business and finance from the business school of Copenhagen. 

About The Forum of Young Global Leaders
Established in 2004 by Professor Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum is a unique, multi-stakeholder community of the world’s most extraordinary young leaders, who dedicate a part of their time to jointly address global challenges and who are committed to devote part of their knowledge and energy to collectively work towards a better future. Together the Young Global Leaders work to discover innovative solutions to today’s most pressing problems through various initiatives and work streams as well as catalysing the next generation of leaders.  

FLOSSNet is presenting a 1-day Create a Project Plan on the Computer Using Open Workbench course to be held on Monday, 6 April 2009 at the University of the Western Cape.

The course is aimed at those who want to learn how to use a project management tool such as Open Workbench (which is the same type of program as MS Project) to create and track projects. Open Workbench will also enable you to cost a project. Delegates will be provided with the Open Workbench program. Visit www.openworkbench.org for more information about the program.

Course Objectives: At the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Create a project
• Create a Work Breakdown Structure
• Create and assign resources
• Finalise the project plan
• Cost a project
• Track a project

Course Date & Venue: Monday, 6 April 2009 from 9:00 to 16:00 at the University of the Western Cape.

Course Fee: The course fee is R700.00 (vat inc). There is a 10% discount if registration takes place before or on Friday, 27 March 2009. If two or more delegates from the same organisation register, then an additional 5% discount applies.

Registration: Complete the registration form which you will find here with the bank details and fax the completed registration form with proof of payment to: 0865 657 296 or e-mail to: registration@flossnet.org.za.

Contact Details: Contact person: Arnold. Cell: 083-513-5743. E-mail: training@flossnet.org.za

Website: www.flossnet.org.za.

About FLOSSNet: FLOSSNet is a social enterprise organisation with the mission to unlock the potential of free/libre and open source software.

The number of unique cellular users is expected to increase from approximately 35 million this year to just less than 42 million by 2013. This is according to the SA Consumer Handset Model and Cellular Activities Report, recently released by ICT market research and analysis firm BMI-TechKnowledge.

Consumers are predominantly using prepaid payment mechanisms, especially amongst lower income users, and this is unlikely to change significantly in the near future. Nevertheless, mobile internet browsing and mobile email access are expected to increase rapidly, with the report forecasting over 15 million users accessing the Internet directly or indirectly on their handsets by 2013.

Ryan Smit, consumer market analyst at BMI-T and author of the report, notes that handset trends such as media-orientated handsets, navigation handsets, and touch screen interfaces indicate that consumers are demanding higher functionality from their handsets, with convergence becoming more and more prevalent.

New operating systems such as iPhone OS and the Android platform have opened up many possibilities, especially when viewed in combination with their application stores which offer the user the ability to buy and install applications directly from his handset.

Read more at: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/78/30770.html

Souce: Bizcommunity

Chris Vermeulen – Bandwidth Barn

At a recent Cape IT Initiative (CITI) strategy meeting held at the Bandwidth Barn, we discussed the huge opportunities still available for developing innovative ICT solutions for especially mobile platforms, and how ICT can be utilised as an enabler across the various [economic] growth sectors in the Western Cape.

I came across this article in which Stacey Higginbotham looks at various possibilities for further development of online and especially mobile payment systems. I hope the article gets the creative [read innovative] juices flowing.

Stacey writes for GigaOM. The article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com

 - Chris Vermeulen

Moving Money Online Stills Needs Work

Credit cards and PayPal notwithstanding, there is still room for new approaches to Web payments, particularly in the mobile realm

Despite the acceptance of credit cards and services like PayPal, the issue of getting money from one person to another online still offers opportunities for innovation. Venture firms are continuing to fund startups that hope to offer better ways to pay online, while the growth of Software as a Service in the enterprise has led to a need for new tools in corporate billing management. Further out, buying items over a mobile phone presents a multibillion-dollar opportunity — if someone can make it easy.

Read the full article at: http://gigaom.com/2008/09/26/moving-money-online-still-needs-work/

I have spent a very informative two hours this afternoon at a Web 2.0 seminar presented by Jamaal Khan at the Bandwidth Barn – and maybe “informative” is putting it mildly – it was really great. Never realised Web 2 had that much opportunity to offer – especially since we here at the Barn have only recently started to embraced social and new media platforms in a drive to reach ICT entrepreneurs and start-ups in the Western Cape. I hope to spend some time next week with Jamaal to discuss our web strategy.

Jamaal has another free (yes, FREE) mini seminar on Blogging Basics coming up on 10 October – I’ll definately be there.

Those of you interested in attending this and other seminars offered by Jamaal can contact him at jamaal@jayz.co.za - be sure to book early.

- Chris Vermeulen

South Africa ranks 37th in the world in the 2008 IT industry competitiveness index, with its ranking unchanged against its 2007 ranking. The finding is weighted primarily towards a strong business and legal environment, represented by 76,9% and 63,5% respectively.

These are among the findings of a new study issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

The study, now in its second year, assesses and compares the information technology (IT) industry environments of 66 countries to determine the extent to which they enable IT sector competitiveness.

Read full story at: http://it-online.co.za/content/view/452670/142/

Source: IT-Online

Unpack answers to the points below

Investors are backing a person, the entrepreneur and more broadly, the full management team.

Your strengths

What is it that you’re really good at? Bring this out and use examples wherever possible to substantiate your claim. (Be sure that your document clearly illustrates how you’ve surrounded yourself with the right people as indicated in point 8 on the previous page).

Passion

Your passion and enthusiasm is vitally important. There are many average, tired people in the world, but equally important is the fact that the top 10% are very, very good. Make it clear how you’re prepared to die for the project and how you’ll not let it fail under any circumstance. In fact, it should be abundantly clear that failure is not an option.

Resilience

Right from the outset, let’s be crystal clear on this point. If you’re not a resilient person and you have not had to illustrate resilience in your life to date the possibility that you’ll fail is high. Take a piece of paper and write down five great challenges you’ve faced (really tough challenges) and what you did to overcome them. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Include these resilience examples in your resume.

Source: Entrepreneur Magazine http://www.entrepreneurmag.co.za/

Clearly outline answers to these points     

1. Does this product or service really (not maybe!) fill a market need? Just because you’re fanatical about something does not mean there are enough customers willing to buy the idea at a price that allows you to make a profit. Answer these questions: 1) Why do customers need this product? 2) Is it a necessity (soap) or a luxury (chocolate)? The answers to these questions lead to the second, critical question. 

2. Is the idea unique? This question has a number of straightforward yes/no answers. 1) Does this product/service exist in the market or if you’re already operating illustrate why it’s unique? 2) If it does exist can you deliver it to customers in a totally different way? A great example is DVD rentals positioned in convenience stores and at garage outlets. Many entrepreneurs fail because they believe they’ll do what’s already been done in a better way or by offering a better service. If that’s the case, let’s go to need number three. 

3. How will your product service be different? This question is critical because if it’s not 100% unique then the likelihood of success is much, much lower. Draw up a table of all the competitors in your market space and in tabulated format create the following headers: competitors, colour of logo, pay-off line, cost of product/s, marketing, sales methodology, key strengths, differentiators and invoicing. Take a long hard look at how your product/service is different. 

4a. Budget: revenue. Work out sales, then re-work at 75% and again at 50%. The 75% and 50% rule is absolutely imperative. You have to know the cash flow factor of selling 50% of your projections because this will be the difference between success and failure. Here’s an example. If you need R100 000 a month to break even and you sell R50 000, in six months you’ll be R300 000 short of cash. NOTE: Include answers to ‘What if’ questions such as a competitor entering the market or a sudden, bad recession.

4b. Budget: costs. Work out your costs, re-work them and finally work them again! Divide the costs model into two stages: the development stage (how many months it will take to get to market – this includes all preparatory work such as registering the business, renting a post box/premises, designing the product (in our case it was layouts of how Entrepreneur magazine would look and its sections), the sales plan, recruitment of staff, furniture etc. (this alone could take 2-3 months depending on staff size and notice periods required) and then work out 12 months of operation. Break the expenses into cost of production (COS) and overhead costs (OH). Get quotes for everything you will need to buy and have them fixed for 6 months. Remember to build in an increase of at least 8% for the second six months. 

4c. Budget: cash flow. Work out your cash flow. There are many cash flow models available and people to assist you. But here’s the golden rule. Your cash flow must indicate costs exactly as you’ll need to pay them (every 30 days – assuming you have negotiated 30-day terms) but with the total revenue reflecting collection in 33% batches at 30, 60 and 90 days. (NOTE: Any money collected ahead of this 33% spread schedule will result in an easing of cash flow.) 

5. Operational plan. Set out a document of who has to do what by when for all key aspects of the business. Be very specific and pay attention to detail. 

6. Sales plan. The sales plan must indicate who the driver is and their key duties. It must indicate the number of sales executives, their monthly targets (that must tie back to the budget), how they will be rewarded and, most importantly, how they will sell – from prospecting to closing the deal and to after sales service. 

7. Marketing plan. The marketing plan must indicate the objectives and goals, how you’ll market (advertising, promotions, etc) the mediums (own website, radio, etc) period (which months) and the budgeted cost. 

8. The people. Some say entrepreneurs are generalists. It does not matter what they say. What is important is that you have the following facets of the business 100% covered as a shortfall in any one will spell disaster; product/service delivery, sales, marketing and accounting.   

Source: Entrepreneur Magazine http://www.entrepreneurmag.co.za/

Over the next couple of days I’ll be sharing this article with you on the blog. Written by Andrew Honey and published in the September edition of Entrepreneur Magazine, it makes for an interesting read. Thanks to Nicole Lombard, Publishing Editor of Entrepreneur Magazine, for allowing us to share this with you.

The Secrets to Raising Money to Start and Grow Your Business

By Andrew Honey, publisher of Entrepreneur Magazine

Raising cash for your start-up or established business is often a long and arduous journey. Some have succeeded. Many have failed. Having had first-hand experience at this, I know what it takes – planning, discipline and tons of resilience.

The setting for this article begins with one of the most frequently asked questions in business, “How do I raise money?” I am sure many entrepreneurs have not started what was possibly a great business simply because they could not raise money and believed they had to when in reality there were a number of alternatives as outlined in this article.

Furthermore, many businesses that failed could have been operating today, delivering good, sustainable profits if they’d followed the advice and ideas as outlined [below]. The critical success factors we look at for raising money are applicable to all types of funding requirements: start-up, expansion, franchising, BEE & cash flow. There is no simple answer to raising money. However, by following the four-step formula as outlined [below], as well as heeding the advice in the tables and the real-life case studies, the likelihood of success will be greatly increased.

Source: Entrepreneur Magazine – http://www.entrepreneurmag.co.za/

ScotlandIS, the sector body for information technology and communication, has criticised Scotland’s failure to attract the brightest technology students and its heavy reliance on offshore skills to drive [ICT] innovation in the country – calling this a recipe for disaster.

Strong innovation, or a strong innovative culture, is the driver of economic growth, and although Cape Town was last week rated as being tops in early-stage entrepreneurial activity, one can never over-emphasize the importance of strong, long-term policy and investment support – by both government and the private sector – to ensure the continued growth of the ICT industry [in the Western Cape]. In evaluating the various interventions and development programmes offered to entrepreneurs, we have to continuously ask ourselves whether we are indeed doing enough in order to ensure growth in the sector or whether we are merely scratching the surface.

Read the full article at: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article4692673.ece

Source: The Sunday Times [UK], September 7 2008