As the year draws to a close, we’re looking back at what’s gone on through the particular prism of our own writing. You’ll find other lists that are contain more news-worthy events, sure, but you won’t find one seen through our particular words.
And if you’re a relative newcomer to htxt.africa, this is a great chance to acquaint yourself with our favourite features and style of writing. That way you can work out if you want to stick around. Also, since the chances are you haven’t read these early features yet, it’s a neat way to relax during your time off.
We begin our annual review in June, not because we especially dislike the preceding five months, but rather because that’s when we started work on htxt.africa. Our initial plan was to spend a little bit of time on the site every day in addition to our day jobs and just see what readers took to. That didn’t last too long.
- One of our first features was a look at the Tshimologong Precinct in downtown Joburg. It’s a five building block in Braamfontein that’s been set aside for development of a new open-access tech hub, which will be filled with thin client workstations, bandwidth and 3D printers. Prof Barry Dwolatzky, founder of the project, gave us a behind the scenes tour of what was then a building site.
- We had an early success with this guide to protecting your Facebook account from cloning. Thousands of people flocked to this post to secure their IDs.
- We’re not just about tech. We’re about the nerds behind tech. As this interview piece with Johannesburg’s own Star Trek command unit confirms. Geek out here.
- We also love start-ups and seed funding, even though they are fundamentally for the week and real websites go out and brave it on their own (like wot we did). So we caught up with the Scandinavian founder of business incubator 88mph, Kresten Buch, to find out what brought him to Africa.
- One of my favourites was an early one – this interview with RepRap Morgan creator Quentin Harley encouraged the man himself to enter $20 000 Gada prize. Which he won. Life changing stuff.
- And finally, even though he works for Microsoft (and, indeed, runs its SA operation), Mteto Nyati is not a bad man. In fact he’s a lovely. Read why over here.
Did we miss anything? Were there other stories of import in June? Let us know below.
(Image: Shutterstock)