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Alan Knott-Craig (born 14 August 1977, Pretoria, South Africa) is a South African entrepreneur and author. He is the founder of Project Isizwe
Alan Knott-Craig (jnr) was born on 14 August 1977 in Pretoria, where he lived until he left school in 1995.
His early school career was at home where his mother, a qualified teacher, ran a kindergarten. At age 6, he went to Glenstantia Primary School, graduating to the Glen High School, Pretoria in 1991.
His father, Alan Knott-Craig (Senior), was Senior General Manager of Mobile Communications at Telkom SA, and later CEO of South African mobile networks, Vodacom (1996-2008) and Cell C (2012-2014).
In 1996, Knott-Craig (jnr) was accepted for a BCom Accounting at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (formerly University of Port Elizabeth). [ unreliable source? ] [1] He graduated in 1998, and completed his postgraduate degree, B Com Honours in Accounting, in 1999. He did his articles at Deloitte Cape Town between 2000 and 2002.
Knott-Craig qualified as a Chartered Accountant (SA) at the end of 2002. He worked in the New York City office of Deloitte USA for a short period.
He returned to South Africa and in October 2003 he founded Cellfind, one of South Africa's first mobile-location-based service providers and served as CEO until 2005. [2] In 2006 he was appointed as CEO of iBurst and built one of South African's largest wireless broadband networks. [3] After the birth of his first daughter, he left iBurst in 2009 to relocate to Stellenbosch. In 2010 he founded and became CEO of World of Avatar, an investment house for apps for Africa and later acquired and became CEO of Mxit, Africa's biggest social network. [4]
He left Mxit and World of Avatar in October 2012 after a disagreement with his partners.
In 2013 he founded 'Project Isizwe, a non-profit company managing the deployment of the largest public free Wi-Fi network in South Africa. [5] In 2014 he founded Herotel, a wireless broadband provider in South Africa, [6]
Between 2003 and 2013 he co-founded and/or funded 17 companies in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector in Africa, including Cellfind, Lucky Mobile, iFind34600, COLV, World of Avatar, Toodu, FSMS, Triloq, 6th Line, Daily Maverick, ARC Telecoms, Pondering Panda, MorMor Media, and Boom.fm . [4]
Knott-Craig married Sibella Bosman in 2002. They have three daughters and live in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
In April 2008, he published Don't Panic, [7] based on an e-mail [8] he sent to his staff aimed at persuading South Africans to stay in the country and contribute positively. The book became the best selling book in South Africa for 2008. [9] [10] In 2019 he wrote a follow-up article. [11]
This was followed in 2012 by Mobinomics: Mxit and South Africa's Mobile Revolution which he co-authored with Gus Silber. [12] Really, Don't Panic and Moenie Stres nie a follow-up of Don't Panic was published in 2014. [13] In 2015 he co-authored So, You Want To Be A Hero, a collection of essays, tips and cartoons targeted at young people looking to fast track their careers.
He writes a daily blog for entrepreneurs at www.bigalmanack.com
Knott-Craig was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009. [14] Forbes listed him as one of the top 10 young African millionaires to watch in 2013. [15] He was also included in “100 Choiseul Africa", a list of top 100 young African business leaders in 2014. [16]
Pretoria is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Cape Town is the legislative capital whereas Bloemfontein is the judicial capital.
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Telkom SA SOC Limited is a South African wireline and wireless telecommunications provider, operating in more than 38 countries across the African continent. Telkom is majority state-owned (55.3%) with the South African government owning 40.5% of Telkom, while another 14.8% is owned by another state-owned company - the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which is closely linked to the South African government.
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Mxit(pronounced "mix it") was a free instant messaging application developed by Mxit (Pty) Ltd. in South Africa that ran on over 8,000 devices, including feature phones, Symbian S60, Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone and tablets.
The Internet in South Africa, one of the most technologically resourced countries on the African continent, is expanding. The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .za is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA) and was granted to South Africa by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1990. Over 60% of Internet traffic generated on the African continent originates from South Africa. As of 2020, 41.5 million people were Internet users.
Mweb is an Internet Service Provider based in South Africa since 1997.
The University of Pretoria is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johannesburg-based Transvaal University College and is the fourth South African institution in continuous operation to be awarded university status. The university has grown from the original 32 students in a single late Victorian house to approximately 53,000 in 2019. The university was built on seven suburban campuses on 1,190 hectares.
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Craig Fulton is a former South Africa men's field hockey international and a former coach of the Ireland men's national field hockey team. As a player he represented South Africa at the 1996 and 2004 Summer Olympics and at the 2002 Men's Hockey World Cup. His brother, Grant, and his wife, Natalie, were also South Africa field hockey internationals. In 2004 Fulton and his wife became the first married couple to represent South Africa at the same Olympic Games.
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Timothy Ernest Victor Kwizera Agaba is a Ugandan-born South African rugby union player for the Bulls in Super Rugby, the Blue Bulls in the Currie Cup and the Blue Bulls XV in the Rugby Challenge. His regular position is flanker or number eight.
Alan Knott-Craig is a retired South African former CEO of Vodacom and Cell C.
Mohamed Shameel Aziz Joosub is a South African businessman and head of Vodacom, a South African mobile communications company with over 55 million customers, since March 2013.
Roman's Pizza is a South African-based pizza restaurant chain franchise founded in 1993. Originally named Little Caesar's when it was founded by Arthur Nicolakakis in Pretoria. The chain was rebranded in 2002 and renamed Roman's Pizza. The company is known for its two for one pizza promotions with a business model that seeks to minimize prices whilst maintaining quality.