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Dear <<First Name>>
From the Editor
At midnight on January 16, I had the wonderful experience of watching a live stream of the School Assembly, where academic awards were given to boys in all grades, house prefects were introduced to the school, and to parents and visitors, and the Head Boy for 2017, Wandile Linde, addressed the school. What a mature and well spoken young man Wandile is!
His speech (link) was firm, intelligent, confident and set the tone of his leadership for 2017. He thanked the school, and those who made it possible for him to attend Kearsney, for providing this opportunity to him. The school is in good hands with Wandile at the helm of the prefects---and how rewarding it is to know that the class of 1952, and the USA-Canada KCOB played a part in allowing this young man to reach the leadership potential he showed tonight, and will no doubt continue to show in his future. However, I also felt sad---sad because other deserving and bright youngsters like Wandile will never have the opportunity to benefit from a Kearsney education and all of the values that it provides, unless more of us old boys step up to provide the financial means for the school to award more bursaries.
My appeals in previous volumes of our USA and Canada KCOB Times have largely fallen on deaf ears—and I’m not sure why? We old boys are out here pursuing successful careers partly because of what Kearsney gave us—an education, inquiring minds, resilience, social graces, a sense of fair play. Why do so many old boys feel that supporting Kearsney is not important? I know that many of us support other causes—couldn’t we add Kearsney as one of our causes? Put that price of a cup of coffee into a jar each working day, and send that to Kearsney at the end of each year; we’d soon reach our goal of $550,000 by 2021—our centenary year-- and be able to give at least four more deserving students scholarships each year. Please be generous.
“Life is not to be lived for personal gain alone, but for giving back to others” Unknown
In this issue of our Newsletter, we are taking a different tack from our previous issues and focusing on IT and technology in general, and on a few of our old boys who have made/are making their mark in various areas of the technology spectrum, in the USA , the UK and in South Africa. Their stories are inspiring and fascinating—the stuff of science fiction!
My sincere thanks to Michael Aitken, Gary Astrup, Roger Fowler Wright, Stuart van der Veen and Nathan Pilbrough for giving of their valuable time to contribute to this issue of the Newsletter.
In future issues, we will be featuring old boys in a variety of fields, medicine, business, academics and others. If you have any thoughts of interesting professions that we can highlight, please let me or Athena know.
Michael Hall (Gillingham 1953)
(310) 702-1636
cailey@g.ucla.edu – LA, California
Editor: The USA and Canada KCOB Times
Chairman: USA and Canada KCOB Centenary Bursary Fund
Contributors
Athena Fisher: Foundation Coordinator
Joy Mills-Hackmann: Foundation Director, co-Editor
Grant du Plooy: USA KCOB Branch Chair
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USA-KCOB Centenary Bursary Fund
This is an invitation to you to Seize the Day! You can get involved by clicking here
Donating Directly from an IRA
In Volume 1 of our Times, I included information about the financial advantages of contributing directly to our Bursary Appeal from an IRA if you are over age 70-1/2 and are required to take an annual Minimum Required Distribution. My financial advisor recently told me that Congress has made this route of charitable giving permanent, rather than approving it on a year by year basis. This route of giving has some clear tax advantages, as well as disadvantages. Your personal situation will determine whether this is a giving route for you. Follow this link to read that article.
Please click on this link for complete information on how to make a tax deductible donation to the USA and Canada KCOB Centenary bursary through GBGM.
NEW! If you are not seeking tax relief, you can now set up a recurring annual or monthly gift via your credit card on the Kearsney Foundations donation site.
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Editor: I notice from the above diagram, that the donors to our bursary fund come from Gillingham (yay!), Finningley and Pembroke. Come on Sheffield old boys! We know you are out there and are just as proud of our school as we G, F and P old boys are. Let’s hear from you!
Wandile Linde, our head boy for 2017 is a Finningley boy and is supported by the USA and Canada Centenary Bursary Fund so your donation this year will go directly to supporting him, and in future years, to supporting other deserving students.
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Michael Aitken (Sheffield 2002)
I was born in Melmoth KZN and grew up in Assagay KZN. Both of my parents were entrepreneurs. My mother (Dee Aitken) ran/runs a nursery, and also a farmstall. My father (Dave Aitken) was a timber farmer, turned mushroom farmer, turned property developer in the Assagay Area ("The Mushroom Farm" https://www.themushroomfarm.co.za)
I attended Hillcrest Primary School until Standard 1, followed by Highbury Prep until standard 5. Both of these are feeder schools for Kearsney where I was a part time dayboy and part time boarder from 1998 through 2002. My older brother, Shaun (Sheffield 1998) was there so it was a natural fit for me; plus, I was lucky to get a scholarship. I participated in sports, playing for the 2nd rugby team as a lock, and for the 1st basketball team for 3 years, plus a few athletics medals here and there. Academically I came 4th overall in the Matric Exam in 2002.
After matriculating from Kearsney in 2002, my interest in technology drove me to study Computer and Electrical Engineering at UCT. In my post graduate years, I was very fortunate to be involved at the inception of a few state sponsored initiatives including the SKA Telescope and the Center for High Performance Computing. I graduated with a MS degree in 2008 shortly after meeting my future wife Tenille in Cape Town.
Tenille was committed to doing her accounting articles in Johannesburg, and we spent 4 wonderful (but grueling!) years living in Bryanston. During that time I started work as a network engineer for Ericsson installing data switching equipment in cellular networks within Sub-Saharan Africa. Frustrated by the conditions during the great recession of 2008/2009, I briefly switched to business consulting for a year, only to quickly figure out that pure consulting was not for me! A call with a fellow UCT alumnus connected the dots for me with US based (but SA founded) network technology company Netronome. With them I quickly gained experience in the field of software engineering applied to networking and high performance computing. Tenille and I were engaged in early 2012 and we immediately started looking for a change of scenery and opportunity for personal growth. Very fortunately both of us were in a position to pick a transfer, and a natural destination was Netronome's headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In 2015, I grew tired of working on networking products that were rather distanced from physical reality, and wanted to cut my teeth on something more meaningful. As luck would have it, the ride sharing company, Uber, was moving to secure a team of robotics experts based out of Carnegie Mellon University (which is in Pittsburgh), with the goal of building a fully self-driving vehicle fleet. It turns out the computing challenges of autonomous cars was a natural fit for my experience with Netronome, whilst the robotics was something I had to learn about on the way. It's become extremely fulfilling to be working on technology that will have profound benefits to people everywhere. In business terms it's also a technology race with global stakes and it's fascinating both observing and being involved in how this plays out. I'm learning how messy and rewarding the innovation process can be! We now have a fleet of autonomous vehicles operating in multiple cities within the USA. It's always a great feeling taking a visitor for their first ride.
Our two year USA plan whizzed past us in a flash, and it's now been five years. Pittsburgh is a beautiful city, with a fantastic quality of living and a great sporting legacy. We are also lucky to have family in both Orlando and San Diego, sunny destinations to head to when we feel homesick (which is often) or the Pittsburgh winter starts to bite.
I feel Kearsney helped prepare me for my career in a few significant ways. Firstly, the Maths and Physical Science classes in Grade12 (then under Keith Decker and Joyce Broadbent ) were outstanding and gave me a headstart in engineering at UCT. Secondly, the competitive nature of Kearsney’s culture helped build a certain leather skin for the work environment that I’ve found continues to pay dividends for me time and again.
Tenille and I travel back to South Africa approximately twice per year to see our family and friends, soak up some Mzansi sun and to keep our spirits up. During these times, discussions in the Aitken household can get very technical as both my brothers, Shaun Aitken (Sheffield 1998) and Jamie Aitken are also engineers.
In our time in the North America, we've been lucky to have been visited by (or visited) a few Kearsney old boys including Gregg Wheelwright, Rylan Dobson and Philipp Damjanovic. I look forward to catching up with any other oldboys who would like to stop by and visit (we’ll have to hit downtown in an autonomous car).
Uber articles:
News clip on our first self driving vehicle platform (Ford Fusion sedan):
https://newsroom.uber.com/pittsburgh-self-driving-uber/
News clip on our second self driving vehicle platform (Volvo XC90 SUV):
https://newsroom.uber.com/san-francisco-your-self-driving-uber-is-arriving-now/
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Tenille Aitken, Mike Aitken (Sheffield 2002) and Gregg Wheelwright (Pembroke 2002) in Pittsburgh
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Tenille Aitken, Mike Aitken (Sheffield 2002) Philipp Damjanovic (Gillingham 2000) and wife Carla with us in Pittsburgh
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Kate Dobson, Tenille Aitken, Mike Aitken (Sheffield 2002) and Ryland Dobson (Sheffield 2002) in Vancouver
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