• Owner of own company called Henriska Technology (http://www.henriska.co.za/)
• Specializing in Internet and Open Source consulting.
• Clients and customers are Small to Medium size enterprises
• Member of the Cape chapter of the Internet Society.

Jan 2001 - Feb 2003
Technical Director
Independent Online

Independent Online operated its ICT server infrastructure on Open Source philosophies. The main benefits were:

• Reduced Cost of ownership
• No licence fees
• Availability of source code so that products can be optimized to suit IOL requirements.
• Reduced hardware costs due to lower hardware requirements.

Independent News and Media Group IT Steering Committee member

• Advices Independent News and Media Board and CEO on ICT strategic projects and issues.

Management of Technical division within Independent Online.

• Daily operations with and annual budget of about R3 million in operating budget and about R1 million of capital expenditure.
• 12 Staff members including Project Managers, developers, designers and system administrators.

• Departmental Responsibilities

• Operation of South African biggest media web portal.
• Development of new Internet Related Projects
• Mail Servers within Independent Online

Technologies Used

• FreeBSD as Operating System
• MySQL as RDBMS
• Apache as Internet Hosting Platform
• PHP as development language
• Windows based desktop system.

Key Performance

• IOL improved from and average media portal to biggest in South Africa with about 15 million page views and 1 million unique users per month.
• Manage major projects to successful implementation.
• Re-design of IOL media portal.
• Virtual News engine for Individual newspaper sites.
• Conversion of Independent News and Media from Internet Solutions as an ISP to UUNET as an ISP. This included the re-negotiation of existing ISP contracts.

Mar 2000 - Dec 2000
Consultant
Fundamo – Subsidiary of Sanlam

Appointed as Independent Consultant

• Design, develop and implementation of WML server which acted as interface between Fundamo backend functionality and cellphone via the Cellphone networks. Architecture used:
  • Linux as operating system.
  • MySQL as RDMS
  • PHP as development language
  • XML as data transfer language
• Release Management and Quality Assurance: Managed the overall testing and release program of the Fundamo systems --- used Rational Rose testing methodologies. This included the QA of the Fundamo web portal as developed by a third party.

Nov 1998 - Feb 2000
Systems Consultant
Astrolabe Technology Group

Provided solutions using Database, Internet and e-Commerce technologies using Microsoft technologies to integrate Document Management and Workflow products.

Designed, developed and implemented an Intranet for Astralabe’s Cape Town office.

Database and Internet development responsibility on the BodyIQ project. BodyIQ is a health monitoring systems from Sport Science Institute that was outsourced to Astrolabe.

Products used:

• MS SQL Server
• MS Internet Information Server (IIS)
• Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS)
• Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ)
• Microsoft Exchange
• Visual Basic as development tool together with ASP, ASP.NET and Javascript.

Jan 1988 - Oct 1998
Development and Project Manager
De Beers Namaqualand Mines

Appointed as Support Specialist for all desktop hardware and software.

De Beers migrated from IBM 9370 technology to AS/400’s. I was appointed to oversee the operation of the AS/400’s which included the development of software solutions on the AS/400.

Promoted to Development Manager responsible for a team of developers using Cobol, RPG on the AS/400 and Visual Basic on PC.

Major projects during my stay at De Beers:

• Real time diamond weighing systems developed in C++
• Conversion of IBM 9375 to AS/400
• Project Manager for converting from Novell to Windows NT – include moving to Microsoft Exchange for email and SQL Server as a RDMS.
• Develop an Intranet using Microsoft Technologies.
• Project Manager for Y2K project.

Experience during this period:

• IBM AS/400
• Microsoft BackOffice platform: Windows NT. Exchange, SQL Server, IIS
• Project Management
• Development Management

Mar 1980 - Dec 1987
Various Positions
Old Mutual

Started at Old Mutual Branch office in an administrative function and later transferred to Old Mutual Head office where I started my career in the ICT field.

Developed software solutions for Actuarial problems using a language called APL.

Progressed up to Department Head level in department that provided software solutions for Individual Life products.

Experience during this period:

• IBM Mainframes
• Various Microsoft products
• Development languages: C, C++ and APL