Last night I went to my first UCT (University of Cape Town) Alumni event called the Alumni Leader Forum, the guest speaker naturally was an Alumni: Ciko Thomas and the topic was "BEE and it's (Entrepreneurship) Discontents"
I went with AC who was also the person that told me about it since apparently until then I wasn't important enough to be told about these types of events. The talk took place at the Hyatt Regency, Rosebank in the Ilanga Room starting at 18:00 and was pretty awesome. AC and I got there really early because we thought that we were going to be in traffic for a while but was pleasantly surprised at the smooth sailing that took us there in less than half the expected time.
We were greeted with offers of drinks and snacks and were introduced to Rene and Jasmine who flew up to Johannesburg for this event. We had a short chat with them concerning the event and other about the forum overall. People started to gather and so we were ushered into the room for the presentation by Mr Thomas interesting surname for a evidently black guy. (For those those who aren't familiar with South African, we define every citizen as Africans and therefore calling someone black is completely PC. Also if he hand any mixed Ancestry we would refer to him as coloured rather than black, hence why the thought.)
The presentation was more than a little disappointing, he raised one or two very good points but overall the failed to surprise me with either facts or opinions. He might be energetic in his presentation but most of that energy seem to be wasted on trying to nail home points that's generally accepted to the group present. For example, he states that current BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) programs have failed in more cases than it succeeded, that maybe we need to shift the paradigm from the idea of redistributing "White" assets to the idea of creating new assets and sharing them in the economic growth through entrepreneurial activities and in order to do so we need to install a new sense of entrepreneurial spirit into the country but failed to present any tangible ways to do so - he left that as a challenge to the listeners to provide it. His central point was that we need to find other ways to nurture entrepreneurial spirit since despite the current governments efforts it has failed. He calls on better education of our students - but fails to mention that we already dedicate a higher percentage of our public spending on education than almost all developed countries. He made a good case, but I was disappointed because he didn't even try to provide a solution for any of these issues, rather to try and motivate us to stand up and make a difference.
At the end of the day he was preaching to the choir and unfortunately lacked that certain spark to inspire me into a true believer - he was just too mild and lukewarm in too much of his presentation. One can't help but wonder if he was trying very hard not to criticize the current BEE implementation too severely since he himself has directly benefited from it. Also by then he has sold his business and is currently working for Nedbank (one of the big 4 banks in SA) doesn't do his gospel of entrepreneurial spirit a lot of good - though one wouldn't go as far as to call him a hypocrite.
At the end of the day, a thoroughly good evening out. Great food at the end and despite what seems to be non-stop criticisms above, I really liked the presentation and the event on a whole. Naturally, good company helped as well.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Exercise and Keeping Fit
For almost 5 months now, I have been conscientiously sweating away at the gym to improve both my looks and the disaster that has been my fitness for the better part of the last five years.
I was almost fit for a while after the South American trip, the altitude and plenty of walking meant that I can back leaner, with a incredibly high oxygen absorption rate. But that was all a very temporary arrangement as my weight bounced back quickly and even with some initial attempts to maintain the fitness I was lost it after 4 months.
But this time round I feel that I really can it will be different - I have averaged around 5 days at the gym in most weeks and even when I went back to Cape Town and Hong Kongfor a short holidays I have managed to go jogging occasionally to make sure that my fitness doesn't slip away while I was on holiday.
My fitness is still far from being called good - but my numbers (according to the heart rate monitor and the treadmilss) has been steadily improving. I recently (last 3 weeks) seem to have reached a plateau and realised that I have reached the limited effects of only running at constant speed. Now I have returned to lifting some weights and doing short but strenuous runs at either high speeds or high inclines.
However this rather stable arrangement has a few challenges coming up on the horizon. Firstly I will be moving from my current location to another place that will not be as convenient as the place I'm staying right now and since I started working properly full time again it will be harder for me to find the quality time to exercise.
With luck this will be a challenge to rise to and with perseverance (and compulsive obsession) I will continue.
I was almost fit for a while after the South American trip, the altitude and plenty of walking meant that I can back leaner, with a incredibly high oxygen absorption rate. But that was all a very temporary arrangement as my weight bounced back quickly and even with some initial attempts to maintain the fitness I was lost it after 4 months.
But this time round I feel that I really can it will be different - I have averaged around 5 days at the gym in most weeks and even when I went back to Cape Town and Hong Kongfor a short holidays I have managed to go jogging occasionally to make sure that my fitness doesn't slip away while I was on holiday.
My fitness is still far from being called good - but my numbers (according to the heart rate monitor and the treadmilss) has been steadily improving. I recently (last 3 weeks) seem to have reached a plateau and realised that I have reached the limited effects of only running at constant speed. Now I have returned to lifting some weights and doing short but strenuous runs at either high speeds or high inclines.
However this rather stable arrangement has a few challenges coming up on the horizon. Firstly I will be moving from my current location to another place that will not be as convenient as the place I'm staying right now and since I started working properly full time again it will be harder for me to find the quality time to exercise.
With luck this will be a challenge to rise to and with perseverance (and compulsive obsession) I will continue.
Tanzania - Afterthoughts
Tanzania was a wonderful country in many regards, it's politically stable and has fast growth economy that seems to have shrugged off the global financial crisis without much trouble. Crime rate is reasonably low and probably better than Cape Town. The cost of living there is fairly high, but I feel that it's not much higher than living in a South African urban area. It's pretty place and wonderful beaches, Chinese food there is really good and access to decent seafood once in a while is awesome!
As the reader might have guessed: BUT! Dar es Salaam is the nations de facto capital and economic center and even there you're as likely to get power at a given time than not. The temperature is really hot all year round with average humility at around 80% - something that I don't do well with. Rent there is crazy expensive for a semi-decent apartment and you have to settle your rent on an annual basis!
No, on balance of things (including many things for and against that I have not mentioned above) I would not choose to live in that particular country.
The place reminds of my hometown, with super shoddily erected buildings and use of inferior materials that would be illegal in many developed countries. Government officials seems to be as corrupt as the bunch in Punning, but then again since it's an African country it's probably one of the least corrupt nations around. As someone intending to invest in the country and someone trained in "Western" economic theories I'm constantly astounded by the lack of a benchmark to price anything here. Land is in huge demand due to the huge shortage in housing - yet there are plenty of empty land around and nothing is happening! Everyone has raised the price of property the the extent that buying a plot and developing it is still a HUGE risk even with the huge demand for apartments.
We can see the effects of colonialism everywhere in the city and people here seem to be hold Chinese people in a much higher esteem than other places I've been to. The people here seem genuinely keen to improve themselves, a sense of pride, self-reliance and self-improvement that is absent from the general population here in SA. I suspect (having not looked up the Geni coefficient for Tanzania) that inequality is incredibly high in this African nation - though not as high as SA.
No, this place is definitely heads and shoulder above the rest of its neighbours but one can't help but wonder how much longer will this growth continue without some fundamental shifts in policy.
As the reader might have guessed: BUT! Dar es Salaam is the nations de facto capital and economic center and even there you're as likely to get power at a given time than not. The temperature is really hot all year round with average humility at around 80% - something that I don't do well with. Rent there is crazy expensive for a semi-decent apartment and you have to settle your rent on an annual basis!
No, on balance of things (including many things for and against that I have not mentioned above) I would not choose to live in that particular country.
The place reminds of my hometown, with super shoddily erected buildings and use of inferior materials that would be illegal in many developed countries. Government officials seems to be as corrupt as the bunch in Punning, but then again since it's an African country it's probably one of the least corrupt nations around. As someone intending to invest in the country and someone trained in "Western" economic theories I'm constantly astounded by the lack of a benchmark to price anything here. Land is in huge demand due to the huge shortage in housing - yet there are plenty of empty land around and nothing is happening! Everyone has raised the price of property the the extent that buying a plot and developing it is still a HUGE risk even with the huge demand for apartments.
We can see the effects of colonialism everywhere in the city and people here seem to be hold Chinese people in a much higher esteem than other places I've been to. The people here seem genuinely keen to improve themselves, a sense of pride, self-reliance and self-improvement that is absent from the general population here in SA. I suspect (having not looked up the Geni coefficient for Tanzania) that inequality is incredibly high in this African nation - though not as high as SA.
No, this place is definitely heads and shoulder above the rest of its neighbours but one can't help but wonder how much longer will this growth continue without some fundamental shifts in policy.
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