I'm a Governance Trainer who helps others run groups where every voice is heard and has an action orientation.
Check out the below word cloud to see words and phrases that articulate my skills and areas of interest:
My areas of study and work experience include a Bachelor of Science and Honours in Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (2006 graduation), a higher certificate in Life Coaching (2015) and numerous short courses in the area of leadership, management, instrumentation and software automation, understanding human motivation, learning environment design, and business/entrepreneurship management. I graduated with my Masters in Philosophy in Inclusive Innovation at the Graduate School of Business, UCT in 2020. My dissertation was titled "Student engagement in low-income, high-stress learning environments" which focused on youth development social enterprises working on the Cape Flats in Cape Town.
I worked for eight years in the corporate engineering space. With various multinational companies my primary role was as an Automation Engineer and leading and managing a team of Instrumentation and Software Technicians. Thereafter, I went through a major career shift focused on driving systemic change in the Education of youth in under-resourced and high crime communities. I'm pursuing my Masters in Philosophy in Inclusive Innovation with a specific focus on inclusive education. I've been creating learning hubs in under-resourced and high-crime communities for the past three years. My main geographical focus has been on the Cape Flats in Cape Town with a specific focus on Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha. In 2022 I moved to Muizenberg as I explore the socioeconmic divide between and within communities, mainly, Mitchells Plain and Muizenberg. We run an intentional-living residency in Muizenberg to impact ourselves and the community, a micro-church that is part of a global community of over 100 other micro-churches as well as a small marketing agency, Techmission.co.za, creating income opportunities for youth in the digital gig economy through client introductions, coaching, and relationship.
The residency, called the Duneside Boro Residency (called DB by everyone at the res), is the next iteration of our work in Mitchells Plain. Once someone graduates from our learning hubs and from high school, employment is the biggest hurdle for them to overcome. So we set out to create an intentional-living space where young people between the ages of 18-25 can connect and develop. We living into being an authentic community as we better understand what that means. They are invited to growth experiences in their understanding of who they are in this world, who they are made to be, and technological training to access tech jobs. We also intentionally engage with the surrounding homes, building relationships, and learning and teaching together. Our intention is that everyone involved, including ourselves are impacted by the love and presence of God.
The church, called the Duneside Boro church (called DB by everyone at the church), is an attempt to create authentic rhythms around church engagement. We've noted traiditional churches struggle with the legacy systems they have in place to serve their community. We've partnered with Renewal Network South Africa who is a sister network of the Underground Tampa Bay who have over 100 micro-churches part of their network. We've enjoyed the restful and intentional practices in doing life together while worshipping Jesus as Lord, saviour and leader. As with the residency, we also intentionally engage with the surrounding homes, building relationships, and learning and teaching together. Our intention is that everyone involved, including ourselves are impacted by the love and presence of God.
We are a digtal marketing company creating opportunities for youth to earn through social media marketing, web development, video editing and much more! We have a passion for creating impact through digital solutions, and remote-working economic opportunities are increasing so this makes so much sense. We have two areas of focus. One is creating helping our clients create authentic online communities. We host these sessions and hold a space for leaders to grow and develop together. The second is helping through teaching 21st century leadership and management principles. We have a high emphasise on embracing technology through the process. This is mostly with leaders who are often wary and unconfident around all the technology options out there.
A strategic attempt to foster a supportive community within with Grace Cafe can flourish was to launch a community group in November 2020. About 10 community members from across the road from Grace Cafe meet twice a month to offer their gifts to foster a better sense of community. This has been one of the most exciting community development projects I have ever been apart of. The community have become friends and we learn together. I see a developing methodology unfold for the approaches I used in fostering this deeper sense of connection. In this short time, with lockdown challenges, community members already regard our group an amazing success!
Grace2Learn operates our flagship learning hub in Rocklands, Mitchells Plain. The name of the learning hub is Grace Cafe. From Jan 2019 till Jan 2021 I have been focused on developing an independent education model that prioritises the local community individuals. These include relevant 21 century learning pedagogies, governance system deployment and systemising multi-generational and multi-cultural engagement. For the rest of 2021 my focus is in setting systems in place and handing it over to the local church and its community.
The BK Leadership Residency is in the heart of Stellenbosch university town. It is geared toward emerging leaders and aspiring leaders to do life together to amplify their current character abilities and priorities to impact the communities they are already working in (for me, under-resourced communities in Mitchell's Plain.) My role was developing healthy rhythms in the household for communal living and assisting one aspiring leader in academic, technical and emotional development.
During my time employed and freelancing for the School in a Box organisation, I managed all the tech educational centres across the Western Cape. This entailed ensuring they were using the tablet technology correctly, that best-practice learning methodologies were being employed and growing the number of active centres. The School in a Box are one of the few EdTech companies, trying to address the issue of inclusive hardware educational resources.
My work at the Philippi Village was around connecting with potential collaborators in the broader Philippi, Crossroads, Nyanga communities. This was no easy task and while there were pockets of inspiration and cocreation, the project largely did not take off in my time there. My hope is that the deep engagement sessions that were hosted, formed a platform and small steps forward for future collaboration. Trust was the key building block I aimed to development with key leaders in the community. We walked together through a process and methodology called TheoryU with the aim of sensing what our greater intentions were, where there might be overlap for action and starting with micro actions to test if it works or not. From an experiential and trust building component this was a successful project. With more time, it might have resulted in deeper more systemic projects for collective impact in the communities we all worked in. I've learned a lot through this experience and have carried many of the lessons with me into current projects.
I serve on four boards currently:
The first is on the board of Grace2Learn, an organisation I founded. I also serve as Managing Director.
The second organisation is Techmission, a leadership coaching agency with a affinity to technological solutions.
I am the Managing Director. The third organisation is J-Life Africa. A disciplemaking movement that operates in over 30
countries in Africa. They are fanning the flame for modelling the life of Jesus for developing and growing disciplemaker
leaders. One of my functions is optimising the administration processes in data collection and reporting.
The fourth organisation is East Mountain South Africa. They are a leadership development organisation who focus on residency
experiences for emerging Christian leaders in Cape Town.
The area of work my trajectory is taking me on is in the area of residential community development. This happens both in-person and online. I also run a small marketing company helping young people earn in the digital gig economy with Techmission. This area of work would focus on individual and collective transformation through incremental and iterative steps of growth. My purpose in this is to help others realise real justice in burdensome paradigms. This would include strategies such as a residency for leadership development, growing a localised learning hub or makerspace which is material and people resource rich, bringing a living developing governance system for the community to enable deep engagement, enjoyable decision making and a high sense of ownership in community project implementation. It is important to note that I do this through an intentional Christian lens. If you would like chat through any of these or the existing projects I am working on, please contact me via the channels below.