This is the first of our new regular newsletters, so it is still somewhat in the making. Please send us suggestions of things you would like to see included in the newsletter. We will be covering the following:

  • Sharing of information, like local technology events and industry news from our region
  • Job listings
  • Access to tender information
  • Joint venture and local outsourcing opportunities
  • Promotion of unique technology related products, services and events

Geek Breakfast

To all of you that attended our #geekbreakfast on the 3rd, we'd like to extend a big thank you for making the event such a success. We had 28 members attend, which was a great turnout.

Our new approach to the geek breakfast saw us deviate from the traditional sit down breakfast in a restaurant to the following:

  • Focus on colabboration and interaction
  • More open style breakfast in a bigger exclusive venue with projector
  • Product demo end elevator pitch sessions
  • We would like to encourage using the community and geek breakfasts for product launches to a closed community

ICT Incubator

The Garden Route ICT Incubator is taking shape and we hope to be operational by the 1st of April 2012 (less than two months from now!)

The incubator will be a physical presence in George, where ict companies can settle as tentants within the fully serviced and subsidised space. Rental, training and mentorship will be provided by the Incubator, and outside agencies like SEDA, Western Cape dept of econ development, etc.

Virtual incubation will also be available for companies that want to stay in their existing premisies, but wants to take advantage of the various subsidised programs the incubator will be running.

The incubator plans on not only helping it's members with trainign, support, and mentoring, but will also undertake joint marketing and exibitions.

This is a fantastic opportunity for us, so please let us know if you are interested to participate. There is a limited number of subsidised slots available. 

Electronics Club

Rudie is organising our first electronics club meeting which will take place at 17:00 on Thursday, 9th Feb. Venue is Office Reliance. This meeting will be used to establish how the club will operate in future, so try and attend if at all possible.

Joseph Rautenbach will demonstrate his twitter to LED project, a hardware software combination, and Rudie will be showing off all sorts of hardware development platforms.

Coffee and muffins will be available. For more details about this exciting new club for young and old alike read here.

Tech Chat Radio

Tech Chat Radio in Knysna have offerred all the members to be interviewed on their live radio show. You would have a 30 min slot to discuss your speciality.

For more info please contact them at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or on 082 8812 420

Western Cape Department of Education - ICT Initiative

The WCED have approached us to asisst them in hosting various school ICT events. These includes the following:

  • An event where the local ICT industry can meet the ICT teachers of the region
  • A reward ceremony for the top matric ICT students

It is vital that we grow our local skills base, so supporting the schools' ICT curriculum is an essential start. Please let us know if you can assist with prizes, internships or with other means.

George Municipality PACA process

The George municipality's LED department is running a series of workshops in order to help identify bottlenecks and key enables in order to grow the economy of George.

They have identified four key industries in George and ICT is one of them. A kick of meeting will be held at the George Civic Centre on 28 February at 2pm, and will last no more than two hours. All of you are welcome to attend and to see exactly how our ICT industry will benefit from this fantastic initiative.

On the 6th of March a ICT industry specific 2 hour virworkshop will be held at the Civic Centre. IT is imperative that all of you try and be there, because this is where we will identify what we as an industry needs to do to enable growth. Key projects will be identified and an action plan and project champions will be assigned.

IT Consortium Website

The consortium website is ready for a refresh.  Please let us know what you would like to see changed and how the website can be made more usefull to all of you.

Also let us know if you are willing to help in the site refresh or if you are able to contribute content to the website.

Technology conference

We are planning an annual multi day technology conference in the Garden Route. If you are interested in participating, exhibiting, speaking or want to contribute in the planning, please let us know.

Gala dinner event

We would like to host an annual gala dinner, where we can come together as industry, together with our partners and celebrate the year's achievements. 

This event would be the perfect opportunity to award prizes for local champions, in categories like best website, best mobile app, etc. Please let us know your suggestions towards making this event a success.

Questionaire

In order to help us decide the right way forward with all our initiatives we ask you to PLEASE complete our online questionare here.

It is vital that everone complete this, as it will help us focus our efforts and increase the benefit for all members.

 

Our next geek breakfast is scheduled for 16th of March 2012 at 09:00. Venue will be confirmed closer to the time.