It started on the farm
I grew up on our family farm in the Western Cape. My dad automated the farm's irrigation himself, writing the SCADA programming that let him watch and control the pumps and valves from a screen. I spent a lot of time looking over his shoulder.
An uncle who worked in technology would visit with things nobody else had yet. He showed me one of the first smartwatches and an early prototype of smart glasses, and for one birthday he gave me an Arduino. I have been taking things apart and building them ever since.
I built my first website in high school, just for fun. Later I studied business at Stellenbosch University, with industrial psychology on the side, which taught me why people choose one company over another. Today I also look after digital and business development at a Cape Town insurance brokerage, where you learn to ask what could go wrong before it does.
