Opera Software University Tours

We awoke on Wednesday morning ready for our final day in South Africa, and our last press interview and final university seminar at Vaal University of Technology.

Meet the Press
The day began at 9am with an interview with a journalist who writes for the very popular South Africa technology news sites/blogs MyBroadband and Tectonic. I have been communicating with him for the last couple of months in the other half of my role as the person responsible for the South African market, and he has always been great with covering Opera, so it was fantastic to meet him after all this time!

Vaal University of Technology
After the interview we were picked up at the hotel by a professor from our final seminar stop, Vaal University of Technology. The university is located about an hour south of Johannesburg in Vanderbijlpark.

This seminar was fantastic way to the tour because we had almost 200 students attend! The professor organised it in conjunction with the Vaal chapter of the Computer Society of South Africa (that's us with them, left), and they did much to spread the word about the seminar - the university actually had to reject some of the last-minute registrations to attend, because the room was at capacity! We had almost double the number of students attending than we had for any previous seminar. There was even a baby in attendance... it's never too early to get people to love Opera and the Web!

The problem with having so many students is that there weren't nearly enough bags. We made sure to give some to the Computer Society helpers and the people who asked questions at the end of the presentation, but we were literally mobbed by everyone else! There was a surging crowd squashing in around us waving their evaluation forms in return for a bag, and groans of disappointment when we announced that we'd run out. Sorry guys!

We got some great student feedback on the seminar, and several students actually said they would have preferred our two-hour presentation to have been much longer!
• “Was perfect! Thank you!”
• “The technology used was remarkable and useful.”
• “It’s a wonderful thing that you go all over the world and get students involved with what you do.”
• “Total quality presentation. Keep it up!”
• “Open an office in South Africa!”
• “Thank you for the knowledge.”
• “Good work, folks!”
• “Opera Software is perfect.”
• “Should come more often.”
• “Great presentation! Great innovation!”
• “Web standards are cool.”
• “I want to try using Opera 9.5!”

And to top it all off, 16 students signed up with interest in our student representatives and internships programs .

University of Pretoria Makes Contact
We headed straight from Vaal University of Technology to the airport, for our flights out of South Africa. We found from checking our emails during the waiting period that several students and staff from University of Pretoria had emailed us to say thank you for our seminar the day before. And one staff member wrote to say that we had inspired him to install the Opera browser on all his lab computers. Excellent news to top off an excellent final day in South Africa!

University of Pretoria
Today we ventured a little over an hour from Johannesburg to Pretoria, to speak at the University of Pretoria. Because I had mixed up the start-time for the seminar, we arrived at the university over an hour early, but it also meant the professor was able to give us a tour of the grounds. It is a very beautiful campus! That's Charles and I on the left with the professor who helped us organise everything there.

I am happy to say that the seminar at University of Pretoria had our biggest audience yet! We also had a very mixed audience. About a quarter were students of computer science, another quarter information technology, and another quarter multimedia. We also had students from law, public health, maths, psychology, and political science – which shows that you don’t need to study technology to love Opera or be interested in the web. Students spanned first year to PhD level, and also had a half-dozen people trek over from the nearby University of South Africa. We also had twenty staff attend, ranging from professors to web content managers to library services officers.

A cool thing about the seminar is that we had 20 students sign up with interest in joining our future internships and student representatives program. It was great to see people so enthusiastic about getting involved! And once again we must thank the university for their kind gifts, which included a CD of music produced by the students there, as well as an African beaded necklace. Thanks, guys!

Sightseeing
As with most of our sightseeing so far, we realised that we had an hour to spare between the seminar and our next event, so we asked the professor for recommendations of things to see in Pretoria and off we went! Jan, Charles and I visited the Voortrekker Monument (for a little history lesson and lovely view looking out over all of Pretoria, see picture right) and the Union Buildings (the seat of South African government, including the offices of their president).

Pretoria Meet-up
In the evening we once again headed to News Cafe for the last of our community meet-ups. And in another attendance record for Pretoria, we had almost double the number of people coming along than we have had for the past ones in South Africa! I think we annoyed the staff because we had to keep adding tables on so that we could fit everyone in . It was also fantastic that almost half of the group were females (since we have only had two other females at the previous meet-ups), so it’s good to see the gender balance evening out!

• Chased a rhinoceros through the bushes – check
• Got chased by an elephant through the bushes – check
• Ate traditional South African food – check
• Handled a chameleon – check
• Wore sandals while surrounded by deadly snakes - check (though that was just Jan)
• Caught whiff of dead wildebeest – check

Because of the near impossibility in getting students to come into university for a seminar over a weekend, we were able to take Saturday and Sunday off. And we were more than ready for a break after a jam-packed week of waking up at 7:30am for seminars, community meet-ups and press interviews, and staying up till 2:30am preparing for the next day! And what better way to take a break in South Africa than to go on a safari .

Charles, Jan and I visited the Thula Thula Private Game Reserve two hours north of Durban. We set out on a game drive almost as soon as we arrived. Within two and a half hours we glimpsed zebra, wildebeest, antelope, giraffe and impala. The photos on the left are all my own! (Impala are known as ‘bush McDonald’s’ because they have an M pattern on their backsides, are everywhere, and everyone else in the bush eats them – they even showed up on our menu!)

Our luck continued on our second game drive when we saw vultures, warthog, the reserve's only crocodile Smiley, and drove through a couple of herds of elephants. We also encountered the lodge’s teenage problem elephant, which has been known to attack vehicles. He followed our car for a nervous few minutes!

We were keen to see the reserve's rhinoceros, but had so far only seen ‘rhino bushes’ (ie “Ooh, is that a rhino over there? Oh. No. Wait. That’s just a bush”). We had to seek her out on foot, and finally found her grazing on a hill. Unfortunately, just as we were pulling out our cameras, a wildebeest grumble frightened her away... so you just have to believe us that we saw her .

But it wasn't all play and no work this weekend: Charles and Jan converted our two guides to Opera Mini users! I emerged from my room for dinner just in time to snap this photo of Jan demonstrating Opera Mini features to our driver.

Welcome to Durban! Today we kicked off the second leg of the tour, with a seminar and a community meet-up.

University of KwaZulu-Natal
At University of KwaZulu-Natal we held a presentation for the electrical, electronic and computer engineering students at the Howard College Campus in town. Because we thought we had too many of our groovy Opera messenger bags for this city, after the seminar we encouraged students to take more than one if they wished. Within a few minutes we had students, who had not attended the seminar, turning up to the classroom asking if they could also have a bag. A few minutes later, the next wave of students turned up – and as word spread around the campus, we were soon handing out bags to students coming both into and out of the classroom. Students love those bags .

Durban Community Meet-up
Thursday evening saw us host our second community meet-up. We attracted a lot of students from our seminar earlier in the day, as well as other people working in IT – as more people turned up we needed to extend out the tables we booked. There was a lot of great conversation, and what was really touching was when people thanked us for a great product and for coming to South Africa. It was a top night, and by the end of the evening even our waiter was asking if he could have an Opera bag .

Day 3 in Cape Town heralded another busy day of the tour, with two interviews, a seminar, and travel to the next city. Happily, it also heralded another day of beautiful weather. Apparently Cape Town typically has more than its fair share of wind and rain, but had been nothing but sunshine since our arrival. Several people thanked us for performing this meteorological miracle .

Making Headlines
The day began at 8:00am with an interview with Vodaworld (the quarterly magazine sent to customers of Vodacom, South Africa’s largest mobile operator), followed by one with magazine Popular Mechanics. The interview with the editor of Vodaworld was as insightful for us as it was for him, as the journalist shared his own experiences and perspectives on the importance of mobile browsing, which is the only way many people in South Africa can access the Web due to the country’s low computer and internet penetration rates. We gained a greater understanding of the impact that something like Opera Mini and Mobile have on people’s lives here, and he thanked us for Opera’s contribution to providing accessibility and information to the people of South Africa. We all felt very proud to be part of it!

University of Cape Town
Our final seminar in Cape Town was held at the University of Cape Town, nestled in the foothills of the picturesque Table Mountain. During most of the seminars we have asked the students which browser they use, and at University of Cape Town every single person in the room raised their hands that they use Opera Mini! In fact the feedback forms showed that most people had attended the seminar because they are great fans of Opera Mini and wished to learn about Opera, or even because they wish to work there!

Some other feedback from the evaluation forms:
• “Very cool!”
• “Very enjoyable presentation”
• “Eye opening experience”

The university also sent down their campus newspaper to cover the event, so after the seminar we posed for happy snaps in between answering students’ questions (see right).

Up A Hill
Afterwards we found ourselves with a spare 45 minutes before we needed to head to the airport to catch our flight for the next stop of the university tour in Durban. "Right!", said Charles. "We're going up the hill!" We seized the opportunity to take an excursion up Table Mountain, which locals had repeatedly been chastising us for not seeing yet! We visited the Rhodes Memorial on Devil's Peak, with its beautiful monument to South African politician Cecil John Rhodes, and enjoyed the view of the city over drinks.

One city down, three to go! Farewell, Cape Town! We had a lovely time with you, and we thank you for having us!