Yasin Ansari

My first 27 Dinner

Category // Web Design

A few months ago The Goose introduced me to a concept called the 27th Dinner that had been going on for a while. Its pretty much a group of geeks that meet up for dinner once every 2 months and network. Organized by Cerebra, the dinners have quickly become an event that books out in a few hours from when the bookings open. It currently runs in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, so if you are keen to meet some interesting dynamic people, then its totally worth going for.

On Monday this week I went to my first 27 Dinner in Johannesburg and wow what an experience. I booked my seat the hour that the bookings went live on the 27 dinner website and sure enough by the end of the day 120 people had done the same and it was booked out. Since then its been serious anticipation for an evening that held so much promise. This one was held at the FTV cafe in Sandton and much to my pleasant surprise despite the freezing cold, went very well thanks to the organization of MelodyMaker. The evening was casual with the main objective being getting to meet as many people as possible. One of the cool things was how you are recognized by your IM or Twitter name, your real world identity really means nothing.Jozi dinners are known to go on to odd hours of the night, but considering the cold we have had this year and the fact that most geeks are smokers (which means standing outside) we were all done by 11.

We were fortunate enough to listen to presentations from Justin Spratt (ISLabs) and Stephen Newton Country manager for Google with some interesting insights on Google’s approach to Africa and what sort of facilitation is available for innovation. The presentation that I found rather interesting was from Justin, his take on South Africa is one that deep down inside I believe and was a big motivation to why I moved to South Africa. This country is the USA of Africa, its the land of opportunity and Jozi is where its happening and the amount of knowledge and talent that exists within this border makes SA one of the best places to be in Africa. IS labs is a company that is geared towards providing you with the platform to launch an innovative, creative and commercially viable idea online.

It was good to put faces to the twitter names and was awesome meeting some new people. So my advise to any passionate aspiring geek who eats, breathes and lives the internet – go for one of these dinners, will make you fall in love with the Internet in SA.