As CEO, Dave founded the Naledi3d Factory in 2000. He holds an MSc in Transportation Engineering and BA (Hons.) Geography and has over thirty years of experience in the Transport and ICT fields.
He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Transport, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, and a Senior Member of the Association of Computer Mechanics and the Computer Society of South Africa.
He joined the Pretoria-based Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1981, where he often found himself working at the forefront of innovation, such as vehicle-responsive traffic lights and freeway management. In ICT, he implemented the second-largest PC network in the Southern Hemisphere in the late 80s, worked on the team that pioneered email in South Africa and later worked with what became the internet – several years before the “world-wide-web” became a part of our lives.
After 15 years of transport, traffic and ICT research work, his passion for VR grew when he was appointed co-Director of the CSIR VR Centre (1998 – 2000).
He started developing his ideas on how impactful VR could be for training and education across Africa in the late 1990s, including its potential for developing our poorer communities – thinking unique at the time, which led to the start of Naledi3d Factory’s journey.
He was the Director of the Tshwane Interactive Digital Centre. The Centre was established and managed by Naledi3d Factory and was active between 2015 and 2019 (when it was assimilated into the City of Tshwane). Through its VR Innovation Academy, the Centre became renowned for taking unemployed (township) Youth and giving them 3D and VR skills that meet the needs of today’s digital world. In the last year’s intake of 50 interns, all who completed the programme found full-time employment within three weeks of completing the 11-month programme.
He still presents at international conferences, and this thinking has since evolved into the benefits of VR, Â AR and XR in today’s 4IR landscape.
Dave describes himself as a “social entrepreneur”. He rails against the prevalent “industrial paradigm” that still seems to dominate our global economies and dreams of the day when a true “knowledge-based society” comes to the fore.
However, he has never lost his sense of humour and can often be heard laughing uproariously from his office.
Other industries include:
1998 – 2002: CSIR VR Centre
2000: Sun City, ACT 2000 – The African Computing & Telecommunications Summit
