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Mark Shuttleworth - Ubuntu Creator South African & sold Thawte to Verisign in the dotcom boom. Elon Musk - South African, of paypal & spacex Roelof Botha - S

Mark Shuttleworth - Ubuntu Creator South African & sold Thawte to Verisign in the dotcom boom. Elon Musk - South African, of paypal & spacex Roelof Botha - South African, of paypal & Sequoia Emanuel Derman - South African, of Goldman Sachs Quantitative strategies Amazon Web Services - South Africa Herman Chinery-Hesse - Ghana, of SOFTtribe OffTopic - J. R. R. Tolkien - South African, Lord of the Rings There is a lot more where that came from: http://ventureburn.com/2014/03/20-kickass-african-tech-entrepreneurs-worth-your-time/ http://ventureburn.com/2014/03/20-kickass-african-tech-entre... You could go to a lot of the Compsci departments at many Universities in African countries and find a lot of good developers or potentially good devs. This is where Accenture , microsoft etc, get their devs from in Africa. EDIT: PLZ downvote this post, my challenge to u guys is to make my Karma go to zero! You can do it guys.

Nanzikambe 12y ago
True. However all of those are, as you point out, from either South Africa or Ghana. See my points regarding the power houses of Africa in the parent post. Outside those, the comp-sci depts. in every uni I checked with were only teaching archaic languages, even by the standards of the day, or none at all. I'll concede, that in my case, that was long ago - but given I'm just hitting middle age, I believe it's still relevant, hence the tips I later gave. TL'DR: if you're African, and not from either of those places or outright wealthy, good luck getting in. Ghana and RSA count, in most respects, as exceptions to the rule.
- Nanzikambe 12y ago
  Just seen the full list, and there're a fair few from other countries - but given the relatively tiny number of names involved, I stand by my opinions
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 12y ago
> OffTopic - J. R. R. Tolkien - South African, Lord of the Rings Born from British parents living in the Boer province of South-Africa, a British colony, so not really South-Africa per se. And he returned to the UK eventually for and after WW1.
- nashequilibrium 12y ago
  What amazes me is that you so confidently post that quote without realizing how terrible your understanding of it is. This shows utter ignorance, go visit the place and understand the history. I kind of want to go on a long explanation, but its just not worth it, people will remain ignorant until they choose to educate themselves of the facts. ps. If the Mayflower ship brings British settlers to the U.S. and they have a kid in the U.S, is that kid not American? A boer colony is just a place where early Dutch settlers settled in South Africa, just like those people arriving in the U.S. on the Mayflower.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    Believe what you want. > The Orange Free State (Dutch: Oranje-Vrijstaat Afrikaans: Oranje-Vrystaat) was an independent Boer sovereign republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. EDIT: I noticed you changed your first message without any "EDIT" notice after I posted this answer. This is not very well viewed on HN.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    > ps. If the Mayflower ship brings British settlers to the U.S. and they have a kid in the U.S, is that kid not American? Irrelevant example. South Africa was a British colony during Tolkien's youth, and I have never heard him being refered as a "South African" - he is born from British parents who happened to live in South Africa for a while, and is clearly identified as a British writer everywhere I know. It's extremely strange to call him "South African" and I do not know where you even got this notion. Even Tolkien refered himself as being English in terms of ethnicity. Check his writings before calling people ignorant.
- 12y ago
SeoxyS 12y ago
Mark Shuttleworth: white, British descent, Elon Musk: white, Canadian/British descent, Chris Pinkham and Benjamin Black (AWS): white, Emanuel Derman: white, J. R. R. Tolkien: white, British descent. --- I'm not trying to say anything about race. But many of the examples you pointed out seemed to be of people of non-african descent. I don't think your examples say much about Africans in tech so much as it says something about people in positions of privilege having the opportunity to found companies. I say this as a one-time white-foreigner living in South Africa, where I spent four years.
- kabouseng 12y ago
  Having lived in South Africa, you will also know that South Africa houses an indigenous white population that has settled in the country ~ 400 years ago, roughly the same time that Europeans settled in America, and also the same time that the black tribes also migrated and arrived in South Africa (Zulu's, Xhosa's, Sotho's etc.) But now for some reason "African" refers to only black people, and white Africans are priviledged and not worthy of mention. Would you follow that same logic for Americans? *For technical correctness the Khoi-San settled in South Africa ~2000 years ago, but is a minority population in South Africa.
  - klaasvakie 12y ago
    Thanks for this kabouseng. As a white South African whose ancestors arrived ~300 years ago, I was wondering how much longer before I was allowed to identify as "African". It's not like I have anywhere else to call home.
    - CmonDev 12y ago
      People are reluctant to recognize the racism against white people. Maybe it will change with the time.
  - EtienneK 12y ago
    I'm a white South African Software Engineer, too. Family arrived here +- 200 years ago. If that doesn't make me African, what does? I can promise you that if I go to Europe, I won't be considered European!
oneweekwonder 12y ago
Adding a name to the list Theo de Raadt from OpenBSD and OpenSSH is also from euro african descent.
mcv 12y ago
South Africa is one of the three richest countries in Africa (with Egypt and Morocco). There's a lot of Africa between those three corners. From your list, only Herman Chinery-Hesse is not from South Africa. There's a lot of untapped potential in Africa that's practically invisible.

Nanzikambe 12y ago

True. However all of those are, as you point out, from either South Africa or Ghana. See my points regarding the power houses of Africa in the parent post. Outside those, the comp-sci depts. in every uni I checked with were only teaching archaic languages, even by the standards of the day, or none at all. I'll concede, that in my case, that was long ago - but given I'm just hitting middle age, I believe it's still relevant, hence the tips I later gave. TL'DR: if you're African, and not from either of those places or outright wealthy, good luck getting in. Ghana and RSA count, in most respects, as exceptions to the rule.

Nanzikambe 12y ago
Just seen the full list, and there're a fair few from other countries - but given the relatively tiny number of names involved, I stand by my opinions

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ekianjo 12y ago

> OffTopic - J. R. R. Tolkien - South African, Lord of the Rings Born from British parents living in the Boer province of South-Africa, a British colony, so not really South-Africa per se. And he returned to the UK eventually for and after WW1.

nashequilibrium 12y ago
What amazes me is that you so confidently post that quote without realizing how terrible your understanding of it is. This shows utter ignorance, go visit the place and understand the history. I kind of want to go on a long explanation, but its just not worth it, people will remain ignorant until they choose to educate themselves of the facts. ps. If the Mayflower ship brings British settlers to the U.S. and they have a kid in the U.S, is that kid not American? A boer colony is just a place where early Dutch settlers settled in South Africa, just like those people arriving in the U.S. on the Mayflower.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  Believe what you want. > The Orange Free State (Dutch: Oranje-Vrijstaat Afrikaans: Oranje-Vrystaat) was an independent Boer sovereign republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. EDIT: I noticed you changed your first message without any "EDIT" notice after I posted this answer. This is not very well viewed on HN.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > ps. If the Mayflower ship brings British settlers to the U.S. and they have a kid in the U.S, is that kid not American? Irrelevant example. South Africa was a British colony during Tolkien's youth, and I have never heard him being refered as a "South African" - he is born from British parents who happened to live in South Africa for a while, and is clearly identified as a British writer everywhere I know. It's extremely strange to call him "South African" and I do not know where you even got this notion. Even Tolkien refered himself as being English in terms of ethnicity. Check his writings before calling people ignorant.
12y ago

SeoxyS 12y ago

Mark Shuttleworth: white, British descent, Elon Musk: white, Canadian/British descent, Chris Pinkham and Benjamin Black (AWS): white, Emanuel Derman: white, J. R. R. Tolkien: white, British descent. --- I'm not trying to say anything about race. But many of the examples you pointed out seemed to be of people of non-african descent. I don't think your examples say much about Africans in tech so much as it says something about people in positions of privilege having the opportunity to found companies. I say this as a one-time white-foreigner living in South Africa, where I spent four years.

kabouseng 12y ago
Having lived in South Africa, you will also know that South Africa houses an indigenous white population that has settled in the country ~ 400 years ago, roughly the same time that Europeans settled in America, and also the same time that the black tribes also migrated and arrived in South Africa (Zulu's, Xhosa's, Sotho's etc.) But now for some reason "African" refers to only black people, and white Africans are priviledged and not worthy of mention. Would you follow that same logic for Americans? *For technical correctness the Khoi-San settled in South Africa ~2000 years ago, but is a minority population in South Africa.
- klaasvakie 12y ago
  Thanks for this kabouseng. As a white South African whose ancestors arrived ~300 years ago, I was wondering how much longer before I was allowed to identify as "African". It's not like I have anywhere else to call home.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    People are reluctant to recognize the racism against white people. Maybe it will change with the time.
- EtienneK 12y ago
  I'm a white South African Software Engineer, too. Family arrived here +- 200 years ago. If that doesn't make me African, what does? I can promise you that if I go to Europe, I won't be considered European!

oneweekwonder 12y ago

Adding a name to the list Theo de Raadt from OpenBSD and OpenSSH is also from euro african descent.

mcv 12y ago

South Africa is one of the three richest countries in Africa (with Egypt and Morocco). There's a lot of Africa between those three corners. From your list, only Herman Chinery-Hesse is not from South Africa. There's a lot of untapped potential in Africa that's practically invisible.