Buspreneur interview with Dean Rotherham

Dean Rotherham, founder and director at Shop Beat, is passionate about making things work and will often work into the crazy hours of the morning to insure that they do just that — work!

1. Who are you? Describe yourself in 3 sentences.
   I’m passionate about people, technology and the meaningful difference we can make in our world by combining the two. I love a good challenge and am always up for something new that can broaden my knowledge. I enjoy attention to detail and often find myself thundering on into the crazy hours of the morning making “stuff” work. ;)
2. What do you expect from your participation on the bus?
   I’m excited about the meeting of a diverse and energetic group of minds that view Southern Africa in the same way I do and truly believe now is “the time for Southern Africa”. I’m looking forward to the journey, not only for sparking and sharing ideas that can turn into long lasting friendships and working partnerships, but also a journey whereby we better understand what Southern Africa really “needs”.
3. Why Africa? Why now?
   Growth in Southern Africa is a given and with that comes endless opportunities, but much of Southern Africa has been isolated from the rest of the world and this has resulted in its “own” form of development and problems. I think there’s a huge area where Southern Africa can now showcase its own growth to the rest of the world and in parallel, Southern Africa can benefit from development the rest of the world has to offer to solve its problems.
4. What is your area of expertise — mobile development, healthcare, or the energy sector? Please talk a little bit about how you gained this expertise…
   I would be honest and say I am not a super expert in any one of the specific fields but I am regularly referred to as being the link between ideas and actions. I feel my skills are within the business area and the “design” of business models. I really enjoy “mapping” products and processes into working systems.
5. Please share an idea for a technology (mobile, health, energy) that can solve a problem/s local to the South African region.
   Education is as much a part of your health and with the penetration of mobile devices there’s an opportunity to put a mobile classroom in every child’s hands. I would love to explore this area more and with some basic technology ideas I believe it can happen.
6. Everyone has a special story. What is yours?
   It’s funny how often special stories start in the bedroom at home … mine is no different. ;) I started what today is called “Shop Beat” and provide customised audio into the franchise and retail market via a small Box Based Broadcasting solution. It essentially delivers a 100% unique audio feed into any environment without the reliance of permanent internet which is often a “nice to have” in Africa. The generated feed is unique and accommodates hyper-localisation for the specific site.
7. Are you sponsoring yourself or do you have sponsors? Please tell us about your sponsors…
   I’m sponsoring myself but I guess you could say Shop Beat, my business, is making it possible. :)