After announcing the birthday of the CEO of AfroVisioN Group and wishing a happy birthday to the CEO of Naija Born and Qube Street, the Black Amphitheater is now taking us to South Africa and opening up the curtains to two big shots. Let’s give a big hand of applause to Vinny Lingham and Justin Stanford. Wondering why this audience and the attention? Before  we proceed with the facts, let us observe a minute of meditation and reflection.

Hard working patriots never consume 24 hours a day for self interests. Many at times, they take a minute or two to have a look around the neighborhood and bring together resources within their reach to set up a breeze of change. This breeze, like any big thing, starts from a small starting point, maybe just an idea and the strong will to accomplish a set goal, but has the potential of flowing across thousands of miles, nationwide, continent-wide or even worldwide. This is exactly what Vinny Lingham and Justin Stanford are doing for Cape Town. These two entrepreneurs and investors share a common vision for Cape Town. They realized that this region has a great potential, with an increasing number of tech startups emerging. Presenting, their focus is not only Cape Town but the whole of South Africa.  Could the Cape Town born Silicon Cape  Initiative be the Silicon Valley of Africa?

The Silicon Cape Initiative is a movement, a mindset, a vision and a belief. This movement has as mission, giving entrepreneurs in the Western Cape the best chance to succeed with access to the right people, structures and most importantly, capital. The Silicon Cape Initiative believes she can unify the efforts of every South African to focus the nation into a successful technology hub. She believes she can enable entrepreneurs to succeed and investors to make above market returns.

In their own words,

The Silicon Cape vision is of an ecosystem in the Western Cape of South Africa, that serves to attract and bring together local and foreign investors, the brightest technical talent, and the most promising entrepreneurs, to foster the creation and growth of world-class IP start-up companies in an environment that competes with other similar hubs around the world against the backdrop of one of the most beautiful settings and pleasant places to live, work and play on the globe.

The initiative aims to start a conversation and create a global brand – to plant a seed and foster the concept of the Silicon Cape in people’s minds and on their lips around the world as the emerging Silicon Valley of Africa, and to create an environment and a perception of the area as a world-class location and destination that is not only capable of delivering but already is. This will in turn create real benefits for the Cape and it’s residents and stakeholders, and assist in attracting further foreign direct investment into South Africa.

The Silicon Cape Initiative seeks to solve, in South Africa, a problem that prevents or discourages startups and hinders the progress of entrepreneurs in numerous African countries. These problems are usually levied by the bigger well established bodies (snatching up talents and making bigger names and more money for themselves) and the state (difficult tax laws and poor incentives).

Let us tread on Black Amphi’s tradition of talking “more” about the people than the “business”. In case you were about to ask, who these two shots really are, reserve the question for we are about to dig into some biographies.

Vinny Lingham is a resident of San Francisco. He is married and enjoys golf, chess and poker. He studied a B.Com (Information Systems) at the University of Cape Town but is certainly more into entrepreneurship than anything else. He is co-founder of the Silicon Cape and also the CEO of Yola, a browser based, website development software for SME’s and groups. He is an Entrepreneur & Search Engine Marketer. He has previously served on marketing advisory boards for Nasdaq listed Valueclick & Yahoo. He also previously founded Clicks2Customers.

Vinny’s hard work has earned him lots of recognition and awards both at home and abroad. He is the recipient of Top Young ICT Entrepreneur in Africa (2006), finalist for Men’s Health Best Man (2009) & ICT Personality of the Year in South Africa (2008). Clicks2Customers, which he previously founded, won the Top Technology Company award in South Africa in 2006, for its revolutionary search engine marketing software and services – servicing world class clients such as Walmart.

Justin Stanford is an Entrepreneurial businessman out to generate and identify opportunities and maximize them in order to create, consolidate and grow diversified and general wealth, jobs and quality of life for those around him, while having fun doing so. He is highly interested in merging technology and other areas of opportunity with business to identify and nurture innovations and bright people that can be successfully commercialized. He loves Business High-performance vehicles Property Boating & Wakeboarding, Fine Dining, Fine Wines, making and listening to music, etc..

Justin Stanford is co-founder of the Silicon Cape Initiative. He is also co-founder and director of Venture Capital & Private Equity industry. He portfolio continues to Non-Executive Director of GetClosure, Investor & Advisor of South African Drilling Services/Scott Drilling and NewbieBowls.com, Founder, Investor & Non-Executive Director of FireID, Founder, Director & CEO of ESET Southern Africa and 4D Innovations Group.

The Silicon Cape Initiative will be launching an event on October 8, 2009 from 7:30am to 1pm at the Bay Hotel Rotunda, Camps Bay. This event is aimed at catalyzing widespread conversation around the concept online and offline, build a global brand, and to establish a working group of volunteers and donors to take the vision forward and see it through to reality, garnering support from all sectors and stakeholders and ultimately establishing a foundation. The event is due to be attended and addressed by the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille. Due to limited resources, the attendee register has been closed already but every interested individual is invited to attend via twitter at http://twitter.com/siliconcape.

Long live the Silicon Cape Initiative, Long live her founders, long live the entrepreneurs and startups she stands for, and long live her well-wishers.