Working closely with the public sector and being truly dedicated to serving communities isn't a new experience for Project Isizwe's CIIO (Chief Innovation & Information Officer) James Devine. He spent 16 years as police reservist, 14 of those with the Flying Squad. "At the same time, I was working my way up in IT," Devine recalls. "So I was working normal hours and then either working in the control room or on the road."
Devine started his career as a computer technician and is now one of the industry's most sought-after IT professionals. No sooner has he left one job, when he's offered another - sometimes on the same day.
After resigning from iBurst in 2011, Devine met up with Alan Knott-Craig Jr., and they discussed a plan to roll out free WiFi to communities. This led to Devine taking the biggest risk of his career: an unpaid position for an idea that many people at the time thought was crazy.
Devine and Zahir Kahn, the new project's COO, rented a studio apartment in Stellenbosch to begin working on their great idea. "I got in my little Opel Corsa Lite and drove down to Cape Town. We didn't earn a salary for six months. When we started this, we had six people around a table, which we made ourselves because we couldn't afford to buy one," laughs Devine.
It was the City of Tshwane contract, which came 'out of the blue', that got the project rolling. "The mayor was like, 'Ok, guys, put it (the free WiFi solution) in, if it works, we'll pay for it, if it doesn't well...'".
The first logon was at 12h55 on a Monday morning, with people looking at job sites. After the launch of the first five sites, says Devine, "the City wanted us to come back and wanted 213 more, mainly around the school and educational components. The rest, as they say, is history."
Devine's hands-on approach to this ambitious project, coupled with his love for being in the field and solving interesting problems, make him the man who made the great idea of rolling out free WiFi happen.
This article was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.