Arthur Goldstuck is confidently the best-known tech researcher working on the African continent. On the Heavy Chef stage, Arthur unpacked the Visa / World Wide Worx / Platinum Seed eCommerce survey results. On an evening that also featured Yuppiechef's Andrew Smith and Bradley Elliott talking about various aspects of the online retail landscape, Arthur's presentation dove headfirst into the details, gleaning key takeouts and some surprising statistics.

UI / UX design whizz Jacques Oberholzer, co-founder of boutique design firm Now Boarding, has worked with some of the most widely-used apps and websites in the world. With clients such as Property24, Standard Bank, Gyft and fintech companies across Europe, Jacques knows a thing or two about bringing a concept to reality. In this insightful talk, Jacques shares his philosophy around standing out in a crowed marketplace.

Bradley Elliott is the CEO of South African digital marketing agency Platinum Seed, which partnered with Visa and research firm World Wide Worx to create the largest ever Online Retail survey conducted in Africa, focusing on eCommerce. Elliott delivered an inspiring talk, originating in some of the major signals from China’s eCommerce market and then reverting to lessons from African eCommerce trends. Elliott ended his talk with five key takeouts to learn from the African example.

Andrew Smith started Yuppiechef with his dear friend Shane Dryden over a decade ago. From selling a handful of products in its first year, it is a now an internationally recognised business that is generating hundreds of millions in turnover. In this action-packed presentation in November 2018, Andrew explains why, in the face of retail doom and gloom, Yuppiechef's decision to launch its retails stores across South Africa was a no-brainer.

Mattieu Theron is an avid Heavy Chef community member and co-founder of Plant The Seed, a South African education startup that aims to revolutionise the way we teach and learn. We spoke to Mattieu this week about education, training and his crowdfunding campaign that he’s just launched.

Conn Bertish is our second speaker at Tuesday's Heavy Chef event, focusing on Grit, and he is remarkably hard to kill. Conn is one of the country’s top creative thinkers, having worked with some of the leading creative agencies in Africa.  In 2006, Conn was diagnosed with a form of adult malignant brain cancer, leaving him at the mercy of the world's most feared disease. Using a very creative approach - and a truckload of grit - Conn finally beat cancer in 2013 - and then started building a tool, to help others do the same. Read how he did it, here. This week, Heavy Chef CO Fred Roed spoke to him about the journey - read the interview here.

Recently, the founder of socially-conscious design agency Creative Seed, Lee Rael and his team launched SeedPod, a podcast seeking to unearth the impactive, socially relevant entrepreneurs in South Africa and beyond. Last week, Lee interviewed Heavy Chef founder Fred Roed to chat about failure, success, the entrepreneurial challenges in South Africa and Fred’s new venture.

Last week Heavy Chef hosted a duo of events in Johannesburg and Cape Town, based on the state of the nation’s ‘Online Retail’ sector. On Wednesday evening, the event was held at Workshop17 in Sandton, headlined by Arthur Goldstuck, Managing Director of World Wide Worx and Brad Elliot, Founder and CEO of Platinum Seed, joined by Ally Khan Pretorius, GM of Uber Eats. On Thursday evening, in Cape Town at Workshop17, Waterfront, the final presentation was given by Andrew Smith, CEO of Yuppiechef.

Knife’s investment in PharmaScout will accelerate product rollout to pharmacies, medical practitioners and pharmaceutical warehouses and enhance new product development for the international market. Heavy Chef caught up with Knife’s Keet van Zyl, as well as 5nines’ Doug Siepman, for comment.

World Wide Worx in partnership with Platinum Seed, Visa, Heavy Chef and the eCommerce Forum of Africa, awarded top eCommerce accolades to Yuppiechef, KAMERS/MAKERS Marketplace, Clever Little Monkey, as well as Netflorist and Woolworths for growing consumer trust in online retail in SA.

This December, Heavy Chef is partnering with Nedgroup Investments to announce the ‘Top 5 Most Exciting Startups In South Africa’, with popular radio and television personality Mo Flava coming on as MC to announce this year’s most successful nominations.