I'm a native South African, born in Johannesburg.

At the end of 2004 I received a B.EngSci (Computer Systems) degree at the
University of Stellenbosch, with a final year focus on Applied Mathematics and digital image
processing.

I then joined Upfront Systems, one of the leading Zope/Plone solution providers in Africa,
where I met some great python programmers and was introduced to Zope and Plone
development.

After 4 years working at Upfront Systems, I relocated to Munich, Germany where I worked at
Syslab.com GmbH.

One and a half years later I left Germany to go traveling through South America for 4 and a
half months before relocating to Somerset West in South Africa, where I run a one man
consultancy.

I speak English, Afrikaans and German, while I'm also able to read and understand Dutch.

In my spare time I love to hike, travel, do martial arts, make and listen to music, explore
new web technologies and do just about any other activity that seems like a fun challenge.

Philosophy:

• I care about the liberalization of mankind and the democratization of power and knowledge.
  That is why I support open standards, open source, creative commons and open governance
  initiatives.
• I care about having a society that has the least possible amount of laws required to maintain
  safety, stability and the well-being of it's citizens while also providing them with the maximum
  amount of personal liberty.
• I care about having an integrated and connected world with a level playing field. Therefore I
  support the lowering of trade barriers, particularly when it comes to the farm subsidies of rich
  Western countries that prevent their poor African, Asian and South-American counterparts from
  competing fairly in one of the few markets where they could actually be competitive.
• I care about having a meritocracy and employing the right person for the job, instead of chasing demographic or representational targets.
• I care about being very good at what I do and maintaining a reputation of excellence.
• I care about the people using the code and user interfaces that I write and design, that they
  find them intuitive, useful and functional.

Open source software I use for this site:

• Debian Server
• Python programming language
• Zope Application Server
• Plone Content Management System
• PloneSoftwareCenter
• Quills Blogging Application
• Gimp image editor

I use and love Ubuntu!