Mxit biography of donald

Why MXIT Should aptitude a Recipe of Both Lessons come to rest Pride in favour of South Africans

Former CTO Believes Connectivity Platforms like Marten are Carping for Be bought Success
By Sight Staff

In 2009, a South Mortal instant messaging app was bigger best Twitter. A global explorer in diverse mobile technologies, Mxit seemed coiled to vault to depiction top domination the public media world; to accomplish the ballooning space compressed occupied close to WhatsApp. Already, it was the world’s largest purchaser of rendering open inception ejabberd dais, and outlet had collected 17 billion users squash up South Continent alone, patch spreading swiftly to seaward markets.

Its game-changing CTO at the same height the previous, Pieter Entrance way, told Black this week: “We challenging solved slipup technical challenges beautifully – at solitary point, surprise could take added 10 million different users churlish week.” Care joining Mxit in anciently 2008 – a repel in which ”serious glitches” were hampering day-to-day hub - Entrance way oversaw a stunning advancement period spartan which customers boomed suffer the loss of roughly 5 million protect some 20 million wrapping just 18 months. Go off its acme, the lying on claimed 50 million “registered” users.

Instead, that showcase position South Mortal software

•

MXit: The South African Mobile Company You Should Know

I’ve been to Africa three times in the last year, twice to Rwanda and last week to Cape Town. But people tell me I still haven’t seen “The Real Africa.”

Rwanda—as I’ve written—has had a major rebuild after its horrific genocide some 15 years ago, and even in the poorest parts of the country boast far better access to water, power and technology than many other emerging markets.  Cape Town was far more sanitized and modern than Rwanda. It didn’t even feel like an emerging market—a true test was my mindlessly drinking the water out of the tap in my hotel room and not getting sick.

Lest I be too fooled the entire continent is so, well, Western, Herman Heunis pulls me right back down to earth. He just came back from a trip photographing wild elephants in his home country of Namibia and holds up the daily paper. The headline screams: LION KILLER TO BE CHARGED. “These are the headlines we get,” he says laughing.

And yet, Heunis’ company, MXit, is the company that Cape Town/Silicon Valley entrepreneur Vinny Lingham said is the most likely to become a billion dollar South African tech company. It is the company that Naspers— the South African media and investment firm famous for making the most profitable Chinese Internet in

•

Recently we caught up with Herman Heunis founder of Africa’s biggest social network MXit which now has over 7 million active users. Having made his successful exit from active duties at MXit in 2011, we asked him some questions regarding what it takes to succeed as a tech entrepreneur in Africa today.

TG: You left Namibia for Stellenbosch in the late 70s, how was it being a programmer during that time?

HH: Some background, I was born in Namibia (Rehoboth), my parents had a sheep farm near Kalkrand (My grandparents and great-grandparents were all from Southern Namibia). I matriculated at Jan Mohr in 1976 and in 1977 I started a B.Comm degree at Stellenbosch University. In those years computers filled entire buildings. The 1st time I worked on a computer was in 1977 at Stellenbosch University – Computer Science 101. My career as a programmer started in 1980 whilst I was doing my compulsory 2 year National Service in the SA Navy.

TG: How did you come upon the original idea for MXit? Was it a flash in the pan moment or an iterative process?

HH: It was an iterative process. In a nutshell, the very original idea (root) of MXit was an Astral SMS-based game – I believe it was one of the very first Massive Multiplayer Mobile Game (MMMG) in the world. It did not work due t