Heavy Chef Stories
By Heavy Chef speakers and community members.
When I think about life in these terms, it’s surprisingly liberating to me. In all the complexity of existence, the building blocks are brutally simple - fear and desire of the consequences that exist deep within our sub-conscious. However, there is a staggering truth at the end of it: most of these consequences don’t exist.
There is a problem with education in South Africa (and Africa). That much is patently clear. The problem is that leaders don't know how to tackle the problem - or where even to start tacking the problem. The '4th Industrial Revolution' has rendered much of the landscape unintelligible for the people in charge of education portfolios at leadership level. When faced with the challenge, the trap is to call yet another round of talks - and all that results is more talks. After listening to two stirring talks by Sam Paddock and S'onqoba Maseko, Former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, gave a fascinating, cogent and sometimes hilarious speech on the Heavy Chef stage.
We have a motherfreaking podcast! Yeah, okay, so we know that everyone and their cats, dogs and llamas are also working on podcasts, but ours is going to be flippen’ awesome. As with everything Heavy Chef related, we’re doing, learning, sharing - then mastering over time. Together with the amazing peeps over at Xero, we’re going to be evolving this series into Africa’s finest podcast interviewing the smartest individuals we can find. Check out our first episode here, with our amazing content manager at Heavy Chef, Ondela Mlandu, chatting to the CEO of South Africa’s biggest presentation company, about presenting tips, techniques and skills.
DigsConnect is a platform that assists students looking for a place to stay by pairing them with homeowners in Cape Town that are looking to rent out their properties on a long-term basis. DigsConnect CEO Alexandria Procter recently revealed at a Heavy Chef event that the team have raised R12-million in what is a groundbreaking seed round for a student startup. I spoke to Alexandria about the round seed funding she acquired.
We’re less than a week away from the launch of Ian Russell’s new book, The Other End of The Telescope. The Heavy Chef team is excited to have a lineup of powerhouses on our Cape Town and Joburg stages. A new addition to the Cape Town leg of the book launch is one of Africa and South Africa’s finest public speakers, someone who is no stranger to the Heavy Chef community.
Heavy Chef sat down with Richard Jamieson, the Senior Associate from Lockstep. Lockstep is a company that assists clients who seek customised leadership solutions. What that means is that they are building leadership skills that will ultimately drive strategy and delivery performance. We wanted to find out how you train leaders to be leaders. Jamieson gave us some fascinating insights.
Heavy Chef announced earlier this year that we have partnered with Global Citizen. The international action-based organisation will be working together to bring you even more insightful learning experiences this year. Global Citizen is changing the way Africa’s governments and corporations interact with their constituents. Ondela Mlandu from Heavy Chef chatted to Carina Claassens, African Marketing Manager for Global Citizen, to find out more about the remarkable work that her team is busy with.
On Thursday 2 May at Workshop17 Watershed, Heavy Chef invited Alexandria Procter of DigsConnect, Mvelo Hlophe of Zaio, Xabiso Lombo of Guardian Gabriel and Tamir Shklaz of Quillo to present their fast growing enterprises to an enthralled Cape Town audience. What do these four startups have in common? They were all formulated in the dorm rooms of one of South Africa’s top universities.
Mike Schalit needs no introduction in the South African advertising world. A highly gifted and unique individual, he has been voted the country’s top Creative Director for eleven consecutive years. In this Heavy Chef presentation, Mike relates how he went from advertising in the digital economy to... building libraries.
Alexandria Procter's energy is infectious. While studying biology, Alexandria had the idea to connect students to student digs in a safe, user-friendly way. Her lecturer persuaded her to drop out of university to pursue her dream to build her innovative venture. Together with her co-founders, Alex has grown DigsConnect into one of South Africa's most exciting startups.
African student entrepreneur Xabiso Lombo is creating a vital resource for young people trying to make a better life in Africa. The problem she's trying to solve? Safety. In this energetic talk, Xabiso relates how she came from a dusty town in the Eastern Cape to creating a tech company that will enable young folks in South Africa to carry on with their lives without the pervasive feeling of helplessness in the face of crime while studying.
Mvelo Hlophe has a presidential air about him. Strong, confident and enigmatic on stage, Mvelo is the CEO of the exciting new student startup Zaio. Mvelo related to a riveted Heavy Chef audience on Thursday 2 May, 2019 at Workshop17 in Cape Town. Mvelo gave some insights as to why Zaio is such an important idea, and some glimpses of how hard it is to run a business behind the scenes - particularly when you're a student at the same time.
Tamir is a plucky young entrepreneur from the University of Cape Town. He's still a student, yet Tamir saw a significant gap in the crazy annual melee that occurs when books are exchanged between students. Instead of post-it notes, Tamir decided to create a platform. In this succinct, highly charged presentation at Heavy Chef, Tamir discloses how he is changing the world and his vision for one of the most exciting young startup ventures in South Africa.
Fred Roed is the CEO of Heavy Chef, and in this video from an event at the Mitre Theatre at Bishops College, Rondebosch Cape Town, he talks about the purpose and meaning behind Heavy Chef, the organisation he founded as a business after selling his digital agency World Wide Creative in 2013. In this video, Roed talks about the foundation of the idea behind Heavy Chef, the origin story, and how it evolved from being a central philosophy at his previous company to being a central tenet of a fast growing education platform.
The future looks bright for young women who aspire to leave their mark in the world of science and technology. Something is happening in the technology industry right now –the diversity pendulum is finally starting to swing. A Non-Profit Organisation called Inspiring Fifty celebrates 50 most inspiring South African women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) annually.
Professor Don Weiss is the Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Columbia University Business School, one of the most prestigious business schools in the world. Each year in May, Weiss takes a team of hungry New York business students to Cape Town to work with local social entrepreneur startups and get involved in the local ecosystem. In this video, Professor Don speaks to Heavy Chef anchor Caley Africa about his thoughts on Cape Town, on raising money and what the South African ecosystem needs in order to thrive.
