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Don’t clutch a book by its quilt – Wayne Ferreira takes on Silicon Valley

Dilapidated South African tennis megastar Wayne Ferreira is arguably thought of the totally to carry the court docket in this nation. Very best identified for his achievements on the tennis court docket, few know him for his accolades as a businessman and entrepreneur. In the fragment below, Silicon Valley conference customer Barry Dwaolatzky shares his ride of looking out on the earlier tennis megastar demonstrate his industry thought, which was high class. Even better, the vogue in which Ferreira handled himself when answering the extremely complex questions that followed from prospective buyers. Indubitably one of many totally South African ex-tennis gamers within the arena pitching a complex industry thought to a pair of of the neatest buyers and entrepreneurs within the innovation capital of the arena? For slump no longer … I bid one must never clutch a book by its quilt. First published on FirstRand’s Views. – Justin Rowe-Roberts

Bottling water within the desolate tract

By Barry Dwolatzky

Right here’s an article for these of you who, take care of me, love trivialities. As a bonus for reading this text, I’m offering you a handful of charming dinky nuggets of comparatively vague data. That you simply would be capable to perchance presumably also earn to stash these away to your unconscious till it’s time to provoke your pub quiz team-mates.

In 1992 South Africa sent a team to the Summer season Olympics for the first time for the reason that nation was banned from competing within the early 1960s. The racially integrated team of 93 athletes marched into the Barcelona Olympic Stadium on the abet of a specifically designed Olympic Flag, in preference to the old Apartheid flag. They had been carrying the hopes of a soon-to-be “novel” South Africa. It had been agreed that if any of our opponents, representing 19 utterly different wearing disciplines, had been to take a gold medal the “anthem” that might perchance be played was Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, in preference to the aloof-official old South African anthem.

By the discontinue of the Video games our athletes had received a full of totally two medals – every silver. One was received by our legendary prolonged-distance runner, Elana Meyer. The various silver medallists had been our men’s tennis doubles pair of Wayne Ferreira and Piet Norval. Ferreira was no flash within the pan. After turning pro in 1989 he went on to take 15 singles titles, 11 doubles titles and once reached the semi-finals of the Australian Birth. In 2001 he was ranked at amount 6 within the arena. Like any utterly different South African couch potatoes, I liked looking out at on TV as “our Wayne” played in opposition to a pair of of the totally tennis gamers within the arena. Ferreira retired from legit tennis in 2004.

This text, nonetheless, is no longer about tennis. Its about one instance of a South African inventor and entrepreneur. Its about the time I met Wayne Ferreira at an event in Silicon Valley, California, ten years after he had retired from tennis. He too was no longer there to chat about sport.

The event was hosted in San Jose by a neighborhood of South African buyers and entrepreneurs living and working in Silicon Valley – the epicentre of excessive-tech innovation within the arena. Wayne and I had been invited (separately) to chat on the gathering. Costly Cape wine and delicious dried fruit and biltong had been on offer because the viewers of over 100 of us gathered. I spotted several familiar famed faces as I went via a sound evaluate and waited for my flip to keep in touch. I used to be there to chat about the Wits University Digital Innovation Hub (now called the Tshimologong Precinct) which I used to be constructing in Braamfontein Johannesburg for the time being. Wayne Ferreira will be speaking about “Bottling water within the desolate tract”, a worthy more tantalising topic than mine. I couldn’t wait to hear what he would glean to order.

He arrived dressed in a delicate gray suit and birth-neck shirt. All americans within the room straight away recognised his familiar smile and freckled face as he worked his manner spherical the room greeting of us with a bone crunching handshake.

I spoke first and Ferreira sat within the front row paying careful attention to all I said. It was then his flip to carry the stage. He projected photography on the veil of an ideal light blue cupboard about the scale of a exiguous automobile. It stood outside a up to the moment office block in an unspecified Center Japanese metropolis. A mountainous desolate tract panorama filled the background. “Our company is is named EcoloBlue. Right here’s our 5000 litre industrial unit” he said.

He showed a video in which bottles of water emerged from one aspect of the machine. An operator also can barely preserve as he packed them into plastic crates. Wayne supplied a commentary describing the efficiency of the machine and the purity of the water. “The set aside does the water attain from?” he asked. Answering his own count on, he said, “The air! Even within the Saudi desolate tract there is ample humidity to extract this amount of contemporary nicely-organized water from the air.”

His presentation was very slick and very spectacular. Nonetheless, it wasn’t till the Q&A session after his talk that I found myself being blown away by this ex-tennis participant. I, and most of these demonstrate, had assumed that Ferreira was the “gross sales man” fronting for a team of nicely-organized geeks lurking within the background. But this was removed from the truth. Wayne Ferreira was the geek! Even when he had barely scraped via college in Johannesburg and played tennis in preference to getting a factual college training, there was no query that he knew his stuff. He stood there fielding complex technical questions on thermodynamics and strength efficiency trade-offs from the knowledgeable viewers of Silicon Valley engineers, scientists and tech entrepreneurs.

Even when his invention wasn’t weird it had many modern facets. Ferreira and his partners had pulled it collectively accurate into a extraordinarily artful system. He spoke about how he also might even use photo voltaic strength to squeeze water out of the air. But more crucial, and more intriguing, than the invention was the inventor. I had the opportunity after the formal section of the event to take a seat for several hours with Wayne Ferreira chatting and consuming delicious Cape Wine. He spoke about how he had change into enthusiastic about thermodynamics, even while he was competing on the legit tennis circuit. How he had taught himself all about this very complex topic. How he learnt to manipulate complex mathematical equations as he searched for better solutions. And how he examined rather a pair of prototype machines.

Once I had watched Wayne Ferreira dominating the tennis courts within the 1990s I had felt proud to call with an world class South African sportsman. At that event in San Jose I felt even prouder to glean a vibrant time a extraordinarily special and dinky identified South African innovator and entrepreneur. One other gem on your trivialities assortment!

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