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With the whole saga going around about the new IEC website costing R3mil rand and many people wanting to know how it could have cost this, the 133T project was put in place to sort out the IEC website. The 133T project began with an attempt to recreate the design of the IEC website in just 24 hours – This was successful, here’s the proof.

Attendees:

TRR
Justin R. Melville
Ruark Ferreira
Gerhard van Straaten

iMod
Christopher Mills

GO2AFRICA
Arno Esterhuizen

+-8 People could not attend for having made previous plans.

The 133T Project will be defined as an (not for profit) organization of industry professionals with the following main functions:

Advisory Body

133T will make itself available to Government & corporate enterprise as an advisory body in the specification of projects, and the technologies used therein. 133T will also assess the merit and qualifications of competing tender candidates in our capacity as industry professionals. The goal of the advisory body will be to ensure that projects are properly conceived and that the parties involved in design, development, management and security are sufficiently qualified / experienced.

Service Provider

133T will render its World-class services to the public and private sector at cost. Offering an ever-expanding array of expertise and service, our aim is to provide an easy, well-qualified alternative to sub-standard tender candidates.

Watch-dog Organization

133T will continue to monitor and conduct investigatory research on all public sector digital projects / services. Our aim is to point out inefficiencies, security risks and system weaknesses that may impact on Governments service delivery mandate, including the delivery of open source applications. We will be making our research and findings available to the public, media, industry and political organizations.

Social Enrichment Foundation

Using funds from projects assigned to 133T as well as donations and financing – we will begin delivery of broadband access & skills (computer / Internet training & English skills) to educational and community centres in need.

So, as you can see, things are happening! I’m going to keep you all posted and let you know what happens as we move forwards.

If you’re interested in getting involved, please just leave a comment :)

For those of you who followed the whole debate over the new elections website costing R3mil, then you’ll know it’s been a heated topic.

Anyway, this hasn’t settle down at all, in fact, it’s going far further than most of you would have ever thought. I’ve been following it now since the 19th and it’s at a point where a meeting is required.

Tonight, the members of 133T and anyone else who is interested, are meeting at the Fire & Ice hotel (Extreme Hotel), in Cape Town CBD. If you’ve followed this topic and you’re interested in knowing more or sharing ideas, then now is the time to step forward and play a role.

The meeting time is 18h30 and everyone looks forward to meeting you!

This is awesome!

Afrigator and Ukash are having a competition, which will allow you to win R3000 for blogging about a charity of your choice. The process is really simple and it’s a lovely way to help out a charity and get an extra R3000 pocket money!

Here’s what I would like you to do:

1. Select a charity from www.thetrust.org.za
2. Write a blog post about the charity, link back to iMod, explain how they inspire you and why they should get the prize
3. Once you’ve done it, send your link to ukash@expandsa.com

The competition ends 20th February, so make sure you complete the 3 tasks above before then!

Here’s mine:

Since as long back as I can remember, I’ve always been a massive cat fan. I currently have 2 cats, Tahlula and Seph, each time I see them they bring a warm feeling to my heart and joy to my eyes.

When I look at a charity such as Kitty Haven, where people are taking the time to help kittens, my heart goes out to them! Here’s their vision:

“To rescue, rehabilitate and provide sanctuary to injured, abused and abandoned cats and kittens from squatter camps, townships and other low-income areas, by providing veterinary treatment, primary healthcare and sterilisation, and ultimately to provide a permanent, loving home.“

That is just beautiful and people which such kind hearts are truly inspiring!

If I win this competition, I will accept R1,500 for myself and donate the other R1,500 to Kitty Haven. This means Kitty Haven will get R4,500 in total and not just R3,000 – here’s to showing how much I care!

Portfolio Gallery, seaped innovation, creativity and passion from its seams on January 21, 2009 for the ‘Hot 100 Trendiest Companies Competition’ Awards Ceremony. 30 of Cape Town’s most forward thinking companys’ representatives gathered under one roof to see the make-up artist professionals from U B .Beautiful walk away with a mobile advertising campaign worth R100 000.00 from MobileAdStream as well as the title of ‘Cape Town’s Trendiest Company of 2008′.

Out of 100 finalists, U B .Beautiful raked in over a quarter of the overall votes. The competition was launched by Springleap.com in November 2008 and relied on public votes cast either online or via sms to determine the winner. Gomoto was also a sponsor of the competition, giving away a gomoto Nippi Scooter to the innovative online marketing consultancy, Altersage for their dedication to the Springleap.com brand.

So, we all agree that the new elections website is a complete mess and that we have talent in South Africa which really can make a difference.

That said, here’s a design, just 24hrs later, which would absolutely KILL the current design as well as cost a bundle less..

Click Here to read details on the 133T Project Manifesto, brought to you by three founding members: TRR, iMod and Yellow-Llama

I’m a..

I can’t believe it – The new elections website apparently cost R3,000,000.00 and it’s horrible!

“In November last year IEC chief information officer, Libisi Maphanga, said that the organisation planned to spend R3 million to fix the website which was inaccessible to computer users not using Microsoft Windows or Internet Explorer.

Maphanga said that the organisation, which oversees elections in the country, would spend R3 million to make its website accessible to all Internet users.

Today the IEC website is available to all users and the error message that previously infuriated users has been removed.” ~ mybb

Looking a little further, if you grab the meta name, you’ll see who designed and “developed” the website. I’m not going to publish his details here though, so you’ll need to view the source. Here’s another website of his.. southafrica2010.co.za – once again, it’s awful.

Argh, this frustrates me! Big up to TRR for pointing this out!

Update – 20.01.09

After reading through all the comments, it boils down to the fact that we would like to know what the website cost. The amount of R3mil has been said to be incorrect.

I ask that people please use this forum to leave constructive comments and not comments aimed at degrading anyone.

They also need an SEO consultant – Check this

Thank You.

This is what the election site should look like..

PREVIEW!!!

I read the Google Blog on a daily basis and it seems that they’re also feeling the hit of the economy:

“As we made clear during our last quarterly earnings call in October, Google is still hiring but at a reduced rate. Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring.

Our first step to address this was to wind down almost all our contracts with external contractors and vendors providing recruiting services for Google. However, after much consideration, we have with great regret decided that we need to go further and reduce the overall size of our recruiting organization by approximately 100 positions.

We know this change will be very difficult for the people concerned, and we hope that many of them will be able to find new roles at Google. They helped build this company, new hire by new hire, and we are enormously grateful for everything they have done.“

It’s interesting to see the big big companies going through this, I sometimes wonder if the economy is just an excuse or whether they really are feeling it?