more here:

http://unreasonable.is/video/vignette-short-videos-timelapses-from-ghana/

http://unreasonable.is/video/episode-12-proteis-hack-a-thon-in-morocco/

Today we arrived in South Africa. In the morning we went over the schedule of events. Then eventually we arrived and begun our journey.

There would be many goodbyes to mentors / learning partners as many people were getting off the ship: CAROLINE; COLMAN; BEN; KAMRAN; SHAWN; REHAN

We met Sean for lunch who runs Unknown Union, a design and fashion shop, or international collective. It’s pretty cool. We had lunch nearby and eating real food and vegetables was so nice.

We picked up a rental car from Avis, and although we asked for the cheapest available option, we ended up getting a nice yellow Fiat convertible. It was Easter week so I believe that most of the cars were taken.

The Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant, is currently the only commercial one in the country, and the sole commercial one in the entire African continent.

We drove to Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant but every road we tried to enter on, we got blocked off. But there is a Nature Reserve right next to the power plant, in essence, protecting the land around it. But the Nature Reserve was closed after 4 PM, so we would return in the following days. Instead, we went to the beach and tried to swim in the freezing cold water.

In the evening, we headed over to the house of NIKE Foundation, for a party near the beach, there.
CAMPS BAY ST. YVES BEACH CLUB, THE PROMENADE, VICTORIA ROAD

DAY 78: PROTEI WINS SAP PITCH EVENT

The event was really interesting, a great mix of people, including a number of SAP leaders, businessmen, environmentalists, activists, and creatives. We presented our pitch, in the operatic style that we had prepared, and although experimental, it went over really well.

Protei ended up winning the award for the best pitch, which was awarded with an amazing dinner a few nights later with superstars such as Prince Fahad of Saudi Arabia, KamRan, Matt Mullenweg (founder of Facebook)…

Then we had dinner at La Colombe, which I heard is the # 1 restaurant in South Africa. It was surely very fine food.

Day 79: Shuttleworth Foundation, Woodstock Studios, Moyo

We head to the Shuttleworth Foundation in the morning.

Then we head to Woodstock, to meet Ralph Borland. His studio is amazing and we met some guys working in the same studio complex, from Thingking. They’re doing super cool work:

And the hooked us up with some really great folks we met the next couple days.

Day 80: Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant, UTC Electrical Engineering,

Stellenbosch Concert

We head back to Koeberg to try to see what it was all about, what the nature reserve is doing there, and to try get some radioactivity data from the ocean surface.

We went to the University of Cape Town, Electrical Engineering Department to meet Robyn Verrinder.

We went to see Paul play music at a bar / music venue in Stellenbosch.

Day 81: Joe from North Sails, RLabs, Dinner with Prince Fahad & Matt Mullenweg

We went to Kalk Bay Cape Town to meet Joe, who works at North Sails, who was Marc’s friend.
 

Bridge Town & RLABS:

Day 82: Moving Sushi, mapping coral reefs & departure from Cape Town

We met with guys from Moving Sushi, who had just returned from a 5 month voyage called Marine Transect , where they sailed around the African coast lines mapping coral reefs and fish using stereoscopic video technology made by Sea GIS.

It was amazing hearing about their journeys and their research, and gave me much insight into using / developing stereoscopy for research and science.
Then we head back to the ship but on the way had one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever had, award winning from Rwanda. And we ate an amazing feast of fruit, cheese, and bread from the NewTown Bakery where we took breakfast.

I’m still trying to download the adafruit Occidentalis disk image to begin using Raspberry Pi but 0.9 megabytes being downloaded on this ship is totally impossible

Workshop with Kamran and Caroline on leading and organizing companies

Caroline’s 10 top tips on Team Building

1.do what you do best: BE CLEAR WHAT YOU”RE GREAT AT
2. Only the best : always recruit people better than you
3. fIT OVER FUNCTION
4. keep the people that SHARE THE VSIOSN : also, get clear what is the vision
5. MIX IT UP: as in gender and other
6. Plan Dinner (you have to enjoy who you are spending time around people you work with)
7. Let them run (hard to do but have to let peole have their freed and give feedback and have checkins)
8. 1×1=4 – the concept of the multiplier – a multiplier of talent vs the opposite
9. laugh a lot

KamRan on startups:
How do you hire the definition of best? first you have to understand their environment – startup – change, inertia, layers of management -
- in astart up you’re immersed with others who are making decisions AS fast as you are, no time for analysis. It is full of highs, full of lows. Revenue is plotted in a jagged line, but if you plot it monthly, it is full of ups and downs; The higher resolution, the quicker are the spikes at rapid fire.
1. characteristics: highly intelligent – need smart people to solve hard problems
2. smart person will find a solution sooner or later
unfortunately finding a solution and having it become real, there is a huge gap , so PERSEVERENCE is key
3. problem – lots of ups and downs – if you find out when it is happening and start to look for solutions when it turns around quickly – if you don’t know about it , and no one talks about the problem, it take s awhile – so HONESTY is important

Moshe and I continued to work on Aprisi website idea (connecting artists with people’s homes to make curated works). Then Cesar and I chose some music for our pitch delivery in South Africa – we were basically writing an opera, not a pitch.

I spoke with Ivana and it was really great to do that.

We were also introduced to Ed Sobey who is going to act as our new mentor. He is the oceanography professor who can do 27+ pullups. He has written many books, “The way toys work” and 26 other books, and his life mantra is: Live Curious

Pitches, a workshop by Shawn Wright, from Microsoft Xbox Kinect Creative Director

1. name and co
2. driving idea – big vision, OLC – everything supports this (wholistic vision)
3. why do we need this? don’t get caught up in details; take audience on a journey -
4. how are we going to do this – yes, it’s possible i’ll show you how ; why is this important
5. FEATURE A:
6. FEATURE B.
7. Feature C: what is the magic, this is the KYEY difference between other things
8. GO BACK : to your holistic picture:
9. TIMELINE
10. COMPETITION – why you are different; what is there opportunity in this space
11. BUSINESS MODEL
12. WHAT WE NEED: what is your ask? what do you want them to walk away with – keep it clean and simple, what do YOU need to make it successful (the seinfeld effect – take it around to people, see how they react)
14. Questions

In the evening, Moshe walked me through the website layout and we made a plan for the next couple days: write out the “transactions” that occur between the customer and client, and the entire web experience; in preparation for the next day to draw out a wireframe for the entire website. Cesar and I had a meeting with Bill from Dragon Innovations which was extremely helpful into the nuances and challenges we will have to deal with when it comes to manufacturing.

Then Cesar and I worked through a new slide deck, watched some Die Antwoorp do get into the mood for South Africa.

SO GOOD.

Umshini_Wam-1920×1080 from Hertoghe on Vimeo.

Die Antwoord. Fatty Boom Boom from renixarenixa on Vimeo.

Today was the Olympics. That means that lots of people, all day were participating in shipwide competitive events, including “frozen tee shirt contest”. It was an extremely nice day to remain in the classroom 1 and work quietly on a lot of work. At the end of the day, Cesar was displaying the movie WE ARE MANY in the Union for the students. After, I went to the toocan lounge and danced to K3$HA or whatever. It was good.

Dedication for Jessie:

Here’s some of what I worked on besides Protei and a bit of grant writing and preparing work etc..

Basically just getting opencv working with Cinder and messing around with some of the cinder examples, OSC, etc.

In order to install OpenCV for Cinder, navigate to your /blocks directory:

gabriellas-MacBook-Air:~ gabriellalevine$ cd /Users/gabriellalevine/Documents/cinder_master/Cinder/blocks


Then do :

gabriellas-MacBook-Air:blocks gabriellalevine$ git clone git://github.com/cinder/Cinder-OpenCV.git opencv

Cloning into 'opencv'...
remote: Counting objects: 1217, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (638/638), done.
remote: Total 1217 (delta 596), reused 1101 (delta 480)
Receiving objects: 100% (1217/1217), 175.04 MiB | 21 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (596/596), done.
gabriellas-MacBook-Air:blocks gabriellalevine$

This took me 3 tries and 24 hours because of the slow internet, but finally I got it installed and can begin to work with Cinder OpenCV. I wonder if I will want to continue to use Kyle’s OpenFrameworks OFxCV rather than cinder’s opencv, but I’ll mess around with them both and figure out which platform will support what I am trying to do.

I also found out who is on our network, because they are deciding that students have been hijacking our internet (and we’re about the change the password).

To do this, I : 1. installed homebrew: 

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)"

2 installed nmap; 

gabriellas-MacBook-Air:blocks gabriellalevine$ brew install nmap

3. sudo nmap -sn 10.200.10.0/24

Starting Nmap 6.25 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-03-23 10:09 CAT
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.1
Host is up (0.0056s latency).
MAC Address: 00:09:0F:97:86:26 (Fortinet)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.2
Host is up (0.0080s latency).
MAC Address: 78:2B:CB:61:D2:8B (Dell)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.4
Host is up (0.0082s latency).
MAC Address: 78:2B:CB:62:3E:B9 (Dell)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.11
Host is up (0.0053s latency).
MAC Address: 00:1C:2E:AF:A4:02 (ProCurve Networking by HP)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.12
Host is up (0.0054s latency).
MAC Address: 00:1D:B3:3B:AA:02 (ProCurve Networking by HP)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.13
Host is up (0.0053s latency).
MAC Address: 00:1D:B3:3B:DA:C2 (ProCurve Networking by HP)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.14
Host is up (0.0053s latency).
MAC Address: 00:1D:B3:3B:6C:02 (ProCurve Networking by HP)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.15
Host is up (0.0054s latency).
MAC Address: 00:1D:B3:3B:EA:C2 (ProCurve Networking by HP)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.51
Host is up (0.058s latency).
MAC Address: C8:F7:33:8C:BF:E5 (Intel Corporate)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.52
Host is up (0.091s latency).
MAC Address: 94:94:26:DE:40:2A (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.57
Host is up (0.16s latency).
MAC Address: F0:08:F1:DF:9F:AB (Samsung Electronics Co.)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.59
Host is up (0.065s latency).
MAC Address: 28:37:37:23:4F:AA (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.60
Host is up (0.11s latency).
MAC Address: 18:87:96:8C:8C:9D (HTC)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.61
Host is up (0.14s latency).
MAC Address: D8:A2:5E:93:47:20 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.63
Host is up (0.11s latency).
MAC Address: E0:C9:7A:30:05:0F (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.65
Host is up (0.10s latency).
MAC Address: 68:94:23:06:D4:75 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.67
Host is up (0.025s latency).
MAC Address: 14:10:9F:DB:34:F1 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.70
Host is up (0.099s latency).
MAC Address: 00:17:CA:93:B5:96 (Qisda)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.73
Host is up (0.056s latency).
MAC Address: 24:AB:81:C2:37:D2 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.74
Host is up (0.055s latency).
MAC Address: 04:18:0F:71:58:7E (Samsung Electronics Co.)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.76
Host is up (0.14s latency).
MAC Address: F8:1E:DF:D8:E5:2C (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.78
Host is up (0.13s latency).
MAC Address: 20:C9:D0:74:B4:05 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.79
Host is up (0.084s latency).
MAC Address: 88:53:95:67:49:64 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.82
Host is up (0.18s latency).
MAC Address: 30:39:26:A1:5B:9D (Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.84
Host is up (0.17s latency).
MAC Address: 68:A8:6D:D2:10:17 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.90
Host is up (0.018s latency).
MAC Address: B8:F6:B1:14:72:71 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.93
Host is up (0.19s latency).
MAC Address: A0:6C:EC:8A:B9:A6 (RIM)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.96
Host is up (0.13s latency).
MAC Address: 64:27:37:0F:CE:29 (Hon Hai Precision Ind. Co.)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.100
Host is up (0.10s latency).
MAC Address: 68:A8:6D:24:8F:BA (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.101
Host is up (0.0085s latency).
MAC Address: 20:C9:D0:47:9B:2D (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.104
Host is up (0.20s latency).
MAC Address: 10:40:F3:7A:7C:D0 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.108
Host is up (0.12s latency).
MAC Address: B8:8D:12:2B:93:EC (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.110
Host is up (0.075s latency).
MAC Address: 00:26:C6:6E:29:9E (Intel Corporate)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.112
Host is up (0.19s latency).
MAC Address: 0C:77:1A:28:A9:47 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.113
Host is up (0.095s latency).
MAC Address: F0:B4:79:15:09:C3 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.116
Host is up (0.19s latency).
MAC Address: 08:3E:8E:B4:D7:A7 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.117
Host is up (0.19s latency).
MAC Address: 3C:D0:F8:0B:C2:7B (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.118
Host is up (0.23s latency).
MAC Address: 00:26:BB:02:69:F3 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.119
Host is up.
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.126
Host is up (0.0092s latency).
MAC Address: 00:23:6C:94:80:04 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.132
Host is up (0.15s latency).
MAC Address: 20:02:AF:3F:48:73 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.134
Host is up (0.084s latency).
MAC Address: 00:88:65:EF:B3:E1 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.135
Host is up (0.067s latency).
MAC Address: 70:DE:E2:A4:21:93 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.141
Host is up (0.16s latency).
MAC Address: 00:25:00:3F:33:B0 (Apple)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.150
Host is up (0.12s latency).
MAC Address: 14:10:9F:DB:B7:F3 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.151
Host is up (0.13s latency).
MAC Address: 68:96:7B:06:18:5E (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.153
Host is up (0.21s latency).
MAC Address: 00:88:65:62:D3:57 (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for 10.200.10.154
Host is up (0.11s latency).
MAC Address: D8:D1:CB:B4:32:43 (Unknown)
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (48 hosts up) scanned in 13.83 seconds
gabriellas-MacBook-Air:blocks gabriellalevine$ git clone git://github.com/cinder/Cinder-OpenCV.git opencv
Cloning into 'opencv'...
remote: Counting objects: 1217, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (638/638), done.
remote: Total 1217 (delta 596), reused 1101 (delta 480)
Receiving objects: 100% (1217/1217), 175.04 MiB | 21 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (596/596), done.

At 11:30 we met with Kamran and chatted until workshop at 13:00.

two pager deep dive with Colman and Kamran: honing in on Protei’s identity

We have some feedback and things to work on, mainly too cluttered towards the second page, the images need to be sexier, the logo looks like a Mexican hat, etc.

The biggest takeaway : What is the BIG ONE LINE CLAIM? that is universal, powerful. Also, perhaps a 2 tiered approach to the business model: we are selling hobby / play / leisure market in order to eventually sell to corporate, gov’t, to have environmental impact, big data. So two tiered approach to reach our goal of environmental cleanup.

work in the glazer lounge

In the evening, most of the ship was preparing to get ready for the BIG OLYMPIC GAMES.  I stayed in the Glazer Lounge working, and ended up staying there all night long, as it was an awesome spot to do work as well as have a beer.

There are some grants we are working on, and follow up from the 2-pager workshop.

Some screencaptures from the work i started:
        

Colman came for a while to brainstorm more about the big, one liner that is captivating and universal – Who is protei, what is the big claim: Virgin Oceanica: the HOOOVER of the ocean; thenext frontier; the ocean roomba; OLC: uncovering the undiscovered… etc

Then I slept there, but only for an hour or so because I had skype meetings all night long.

View Larger Map

Resident Attorney

The Kembel kids showed Cesar the progress they had made miniature boats they were about to test in the pool:

Their boats reminded me of a small robot boat I made (and taught guys to make at a workshop at the Science Gallery, Dublin, Trinity College) :

Spaghetti boat:

Also I published this on Instructables

We had a meeting with Rehan Hasan, the resident attorney on board.

We of course have many IP and legal questions, especially considering that we are in the midst of completing a Protei-specific Open Hardware Licence with Andrew Katz.

Open Hardware: build business to fail, build technology for the environment

We do not want anyone to put us out of business : as in, steal our tech and patent it so we cannot any longer make flexible hull sailboats with segmented bodies. We DO want people to copy and produce and distribute our technology. How do we protect ourselves for this. can we do it with a license
–>License : what does this protect – i.e. cern open source hardware license to protect documentation ownership and distribution of the “electronic / hardware” product
–is a license just a social framework / agreement or is this actually protecting you for the technology
–What are the implications of publishing documentation about the technology ?
–>does this make it impossible for others to NOT patent… does this protect us in any way?

Some IP questions from the past:
2 what are the implications of a patent on electronics? if it is open source
3 can we / should we file for provisional patents?
4 What does a patent do: protect against anyone else that tries to do what we’re doing? from taking our tech and putting us out of business?
5 How do we ensure we can monetize this technology before anyone else?
6 Shall we find a specific IP lawyer?
7 how do we stay true to open source, perhaps we cannot get a patent because then it is just free, but not open?
8 can you patent just one part of the technology and the rest is open source? will this help with funding?
9 if we publish our paper in a journal, does this suffice for protecting us against others who try to patent our technology?

4 types of protection: copyright, patent, trademark and tradesecret. Tradesecret is the only type of protection that you don’t apply for. For example, the recipe for coca cola, which is TRADESECRET, confidential. As soon as information is public info, it ceases to be proprietary because it’s in the public general knowledge. Open source means that it is published in general public knowledge, so that someone else cannot claim it as their own. So therefore, protection might come from publishing it, and making it accessible.

A LICENSE? what does it do?
It sets up general guidelines, but doesn’t force someone because we dont own it if the community makes it, it is their IP.
It sets up guidelines about : Liability issues and protections – how to get paid, warranty, limit damages, limit liability,
you can have a royalty or a license fee

Segmenting companies with different industries, geographies, assets, IP, and missions insulates liability and risk. For example, an investor can invest in one or many, or a holding company. Segmenting earlier is better. And you build in culture: control your branding strategically and thoughtfully.

workshop: intros and legal discussion

Chris from Microsoft;
Kamron – angry birds, ~5000 out of 29M users; only created technologies that brought humans closer. Now interested in : god 2.0 and self organized mesh networks using 2d technology, non regulated hi bandwidth networks, resolve power way from government pass it onto the masses.
Reyan Hassan – attorney in Denver; Entrepreneur himself, involved with venture community
Caroline from Nike.

George gives the brief of what we should prepare for the global design entrepreneurship class, but Protei opts not to be involved with the next brainstorming design challenge.

A simple framework to design good design challenges : usually people think we’re designing a thing (a lamp, a wallet) but what about service, policy etc… Try to just add the word “experience”.

REDEISTIGN BLANK experience BLANK.

Here are a couple of examples: redesign the solar cooking experience while camping. Redesign the school experience for a new students.
Redesign the investors experience for learning about prakti stoves.

IP MEETING / Workshop:

usually the answer is: it all depends.

The roadmap: the lifecylce of a business: with every company the timing changes – but by and large, it starts with:
1. the formation of the company, entry point (c corp, llc etc)
2. Doing business: form as an entity, start doing business: do contracts so you get paid through service you do, and widgets you sell
3. constructing the business – get IC and employees
5. incentivising and keeping the employees
4. scale up, take outside investment, bring it to the next level – funding from friends, family, private equity, consumer, bank loans
6. your exit: sales to third party, pass down to family, sell to employees…

There’s no such thing as a wasted experience if you learned.

We spent the rest of the day and night working a grant proposal for Think Beyond Plastic and developed our slide deck: