Only those already registered will be eligible to vote, and must notify the chief electoral officer of their intention to vote by March 27. The London Voting Station will be South Africa House/ SA High Commission.

To check if you are eligible to vote, visit:
https://www.elections.org.za/AmRegister/amregister.aspx.

Hat tip: SA Business Club newsletter

* Update – from the SA LegalBrief Today newsletter *

Constitutional: Registered expats cleared to vote
The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled unanimously that South Africans living abroad had the right to vote if they were registered. The court ruled that section 33 of the 1998 Electoral Act unfairly restricted the right to cast special votes while abroad to a very narrow class of citizens. It declared this section to be unconstitutional. As a result, all citizens who are registered voters, and who will be out of the country on 22 April, will be allowed to vote in the national (not provincial) elections ‘provided they give notice of their intention to do so, in terms of the Election Regulations, on or before 27 March to the Chief Electoral Officer and identify the embassy, high commission or consulate where they intend to apply for the special vote’. Handing down the first of two separate judgments, Justice Kate O’Regan said the right to vote had a symbolic and democratic value and those who were registered should not be limited by unconstitutional and invalid limitations in the Electoral Act. However, notes a report in The Times, a second judgment by Justice Sandile Ngcobo found that unregistered voters overseas could not vote. The limitations had been in effect since 2003 and the applicants had not explained why they had left the challenge so late. This follows an application by the Freedom Front Plus on behalf of a Pretoria school teacher working in the UK, as well as representation by the IFP, the DA, the A-Party, a lobby group, and an independent group of South Africans living overseas.

Political parties across the board have welcomed the ruling, according to an SABC News report. The Freedom Front Plus says it is a victory for democracy. Party leader Pieter Mulder said it was difficult to say whether the ruling would have an impact on the outcome of the elections, but that was not the point. DA chairperson James Selfe predicted that the ruling would improve the party’s performance in the elections: ‘We will benefit differentially from this decision,’ he said. The DA would in coming days decide whether to launch a separate legal bid to secure voters abroad the right to cast ballots for provincial governments as well. ‘It is a matter that we need to think through thoroughly.’ Figures had shown that most registered voters lived in the UK and the DA might extend its campaign to reach the large expatriate community there. According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, Selfe also said the DA was planning to bring forward new legislative proposals to clean up the whole business of the rights of South Africans abroad to vote. ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte is quoted as saying the ruling was in line with the ANC’s view that every effort should be made to ensure all South Africans, including those temporarily living abroad, be given an opportunity to cast their votes in elections.

The Independent Electoral Commission has no idea how many expatriates might vote, says a report in The Times. It notes more than 5 000 South Africans living abroad have already applied for a special vote, but the final number is anyone’s guess, the IEC’s chief electoral officer, Pansy Tlakula, has conceded.

Although the decision will not have a major impact on the elections, it is significant – both for the message it conveys to South Africans living abroad, and for what it says about the current state of our country today, writes political commentator James Myburgh on the Politicsweb site. He says the decision to disenfranchise overseas South Africans was a thoroughly mean-spirited one. The old ruling clique of the ANC clearly felt their departure to be some kind of rebuke – and so sought to punish them. In his affidavit to the Constitutional Court, IFP leader and former Minister of Home Affairs, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, wrote that a senior official had explained the ANC’s rationale as follows: ‘They left us in the lurch and do not deserve to vote.’ This petty and vindictive attitude was carried over until recently. By contrast, writes Myburgh, Judge Kate O’Regan’s reasoning in the judgment is broadminded and generous. She noted that SA is now part of a global economy which allows citizens of this country to study and work abroad: ‘The experience that they gain will enrich our society when they return…. The evidence before us, too, shows that many South African citizens abroad make remittances to family members in SA while they are abroad, or save money to buy a house. To the extent that citizens engaged in such pursuits want to take the trouble to participate in elections while abroad, it is an expression both of their continued commitment to our country and their civic-mindedness from which our democracy will benefit.’ Hopefully, writes Myburgh, extending the right to vote to citizens abroad will foster a continued sense of belonging, and help keep alive the desire to return.

_ Financial Mail – Here comes Neotel

SA’s second fixed-line network operator was meant to begin operating in May 2002, when Telkom lost its statutory monopoly over fixed-line telecommunications. Six years later, the company – known now as Neotel – will finally launch its services to consumers.

All signs are that Neotel is finally gaining traction – and that it’s prepared to take the fight to Telkom. Despite warning initially that it wouldn’t start a price war with Telkom, indications are that it will compete aggressively on price. The company is still reluctant to talk prices, but some details are emerging.

Hat tip to Tim, who still does not have a blog yet.. ;-(

To get to the title of my first post – “Life is too short to dance with fat girls”. I heard it yesterday while watching Episode 8 of Californication, a new American mini series, where David Duchovny plays Hank Moody, a famous author with writers block. Hank’s father tells him that while the two of them are having a father to son chat at a bar – I had a good chuckle when I heard him say it

Nice one Steve – looking forward to some good content!!

My previous design lasted for almost half of that time. Despite its shortcomings (lack of a feature-rich CMS) and obvious design flaws, and given the amount of recognition that it received, I became hesitant to change it much. Until the waves of spam attacks began.

Since my blog was running on a bespoke system, it became increasingly difficult and time-consuming to manage, which partly explains why I haven’t been posting as regularly.

So after a tricky data migration and clean-up (the volume of crap I’ve written in the past 6 years is embarrassing), a tiresome metadata capturing process (adding titles and tags to 770 posts), and a couple of design revisions later, this blog has undergone a complete overhaul and is now powered by WordPress 2.5.1 with a super collection of plugins.

_ The Citizen: kindo.com is a site to watch

Many years ago I attended an extramural special-interest course at Schmerenbeck school in Johannesburg, where we were taught how to build, maintain and document our family trees (or to use the more scientific term, our genealogy).
I loved it.

Thanks Mike

You know you are behind in your financial achievements when Entrepreneur magazine starts running articles on how to make your first billion.

Or when you see a property exhibition for apartments in Brooklyn, Pretoria, that cost up to R24-million. Each.

Or when you read that there are more than 5 000 South Africans who became new dollar millionaires last year, bringing our total up to about 50 000 or so.

So, what are you waiting for?

Red Dragon – Internet in China:

• Chinese market is super large – 200m online & 600m mobile, but market stats are unreliable in general.
• Problems with the market – mobile is bigger, largely internet cafe based, government controlled.
• Quasi e-commerce – credit cards not common yet – impediment to online advertising.
• User generated content is pretty low.
• Hire people who understand culture and creative language.
• Stock options not common – people understand cash.

Zuckerberg keynote with Sarah Lacy:
Interesting to say the least, not sure I believe everything that was said about valuations and finances. I’m not going to add to the (pretty justified IMO) noise, but I did feel uncomfortable several times… Can only imagine how Mark felt… ;-( Zuckerberg comes accross as a geek / dork, but a likeable one at that
Facebook kool aid is:

• making communication more efficient (repeated over and over and over and over and over)
• creating platforms for efficient comunication
• have reached 500 employee mark
• running at just about breakeven

20 Ways to woo users:
Great talk by Kathy Sierra, found her engaging and thoroughly stimulating. Got to chat to her in the hallway this afternoon, and was totally disarmed – think she could disarm a SWAT team
Most important take home for me was around:

• making users feel like they’re super heroes
• using real life physics to create a sense of wonder
• giving your users joy

It sounds blatantly obvious, but the examples used and way it was presented makes it accessible. My notepad was flowing with ideas for Kindo after that…

Africa 2.0: Affecting change using technology, with Kofi, Uduok, Nii, and Erik.
An earlier blog post asking whether there were any Africans at SxSW was pleasantly answered when I read the schedule in more detail (the mini schedule said “affecting change” which didn’t hit my radar. Was super happy to finally meet Erik in person, who I’ve been chatting to for a while now over email. I think that his blog post does more justice than I could, however my take homes were around:

• there are Africans who are motivated to do something in Africa, off the back of their education and experience in Western countries
• the mobile market is bigger and has lower barrier to entry (but we already knew that – re-affirmation)
• opportunities seem to be around connecting communities and interest groups, either to mobilise them, or provide tools to enrich their lives
• it seems that there is the political and financial will to do things in Africa, but what’s lacking is on the ground implementable, executable ideas and people to do so…

More on that soon ‘tho.

As usual, the after panel discussions were the most interesting (as Erik mentions), and I found the dinner table discussions with the guys and girls from Vidoop and Nike really interesting. Spent the evening going from bar and event to bar and event, finally settled on Club Deville which was pretty good.
Have to say that the highlight of the evening was catching up again with Dustin Diaz and meeting his girl Erin Looking forward to the IHOP again!!!

Going to have a good old rant, it has been a while. For all the new people – this happens every now and then, I have a really good self-righteous rant about something. Don’t be scared and always remember that I always have one aim for all my emails – to make you think. (And apologies to everyone overseas, this is addressed to the local South Africans)

And what better to rant about than the recent load-shedding and Jacob Zuma as the next president. People keep telling me that the country is in big trouble, that Eskom’s woes are a major problem and will spell the end of our economy, and that when Zuma becomes president he is going to run the country further into the ground. Time to leave, time to get out while you can! Do I agree that South Africa is in big trouble? Yes, I do absolutely. We have major issues that threaten our stability, happiness and future prospects. Complicated issues that will take a very long time to solve. These issues however are NOT Eskom or Zuma. They are not new issues either.

_ About

Peter Nixon is a professional accountant who grew a conscience and has now dedicated his life to changing the world for the better. He was born in South Africa in 1976 and lived in England from 1988 to 1991 before returning to South Africa. Initially he studied to become an accountant, registering as a Chartered Accountant in 2003. However this did not fill him with a sense of purpose and fulfilment and he went back to study, completing an honours degree in International Relations in 2006. Africa is where his heart lies and he wants more than anything to see Africa succeed in the world.

In the guise of the Mercenary Chef he mercilessly invades kitchens in order to cook dinner, see his friends, meet new people and discuss weighty topics.

Anything he says on this website is his own partially informed opinion and you rely on what he says at your own peril. He also accepts no responsibility for plagiarism or stolen ideas – credit will be given where possible, but he reads a lot of stuff and it is difficult to keep track of everything. This is just what he is currently thinking about, and what he thinks about and believes is subject to change without notice.

THE price of international bandwidth will plummet 80% when the Seacom undersea cable goes live on June 17 next year.

Seacom will be the first of several proposed cables to finally reach African shores and local universities have already been promised international bandwidth for just 2,5% of the fee they currently pay.

Seacom president Brian Herlihy said the $600m, 17000km cable running up Africa’s east coast, then on to India and France, was on track for a “dead-certain delivery date”.

Its bandwidth will cost as little as R267 a month per 1MB, compared to between R3500 and R11000 to use Telkom’s bandwidth on the existing Sat-3 cable, or a punishing R231000 for satellite connectivity.

So, is this good news or what?? Thoughts? Will SA people based in SA be able to take over the world now?

So here I am with 20 mins to kill and a few ideas…

To be honest it’s not really the significance or duration of it that makes me want to write, but rather the situation I find myself in that makes me reflective. I’ve always maintained that this blog is an exercise in catharcism and memory more than anything else.

6 years ago I couldn’t find a proper first job in London, had almost blown my savings on partying with my already financially established mates (the exchange rate post 9/11 meant I arrived with half of what I would have – it was about R20 to £1), was living on about £350 a month (it can be done, ask me how) in a double room with another (great) guy and constant snail invasions in a house with 5 rooms and no lounge and no electricity and no warmth, and at times felt like the road to finding something was more than I could handle. Shock, horror, I also had to sleep on the floor of a mates studio flat in winter in a pink sleeping bag made for South African summers. I’ve already said I was wet behind the ears. More than a few times I broke down and wanted to give up.

We did live wonderful privileged lives in South Africa, and I often wonder if we still could. I guess a part of me insanely wanted to arrive in London and suddenly leapfrog into the social and job sphere I inhabited in South Africa. No such luck

On the 18th of Jan (the day I arrived in London) precisely 6 years later, I found myself in a Kindo board meeting at 8am, with some of the best and most talented individuals I’ve had the pleasure to work with. There’s a Kindo press release coming soon about our investors, so I’m keeping schtum for now. If you had have asked me what I would be doing with my time 6 years ago, and described Kindo to me, I probably would have jumped at it with open arms, and still would.

Lucky for me me I’m now living in a great 2 bed flat in the heart of Wimbledon with my brother (who I’m immensely proud of) – constant electricity, real heating, no snails, nice huge TV, tinternet, telephone – the works baby!!

On top of that, thank my lucky stars, the next day I left for a week long holiday in France, where I got to race down steep snow covered slopes on a 5ft long snowboard. I felt like a kid again, and after turning down at least 6 or 7 similar trips with good mates, due to lack of cash or too much work going on, it did feel like I’d turned something, if not a corner.

It’s funny how life is, how the irony of things makes reflection and introspection lead you to the conclusion that sometimes sheer bloody mindedness and persistence is often more or less important than what or whom you know. I think what I’m trying to tell myself is that the last 6 years have been worth it every step of the way, for the lessons I’ve learned, people I’ve met, and experiences I’ve had. It seems almost too good to be true the situation I find myself in now is almost the complete opposite of where I was 6 years ago. Yet when I examine what work I’ve put in, some would say no wonder. The hard part is I often berate myself for not putting in more…

I wonder what the next 6 years has in store for moi? Much if I have anything to do with it