My name is Gideon and I grew up on a small farm in South Africa.

Being the youngest of three children with a 7 year gap between my sister and I, and 8 years difference between my brother and I and, being fairly remote meaning no friends close by to hang out with, I had to learn how to entertain myself from the moment I can remember. Those were the days before the internet and believe it or not, but my parents only bought a television the year I turned 7.

So, from before I went to school, I found joy in making my own toys out of scrap that I could find around the farm and keeping myself entertained by hunting small game and making my own traps etc. Where others saw junk or useless items, I saw stuff that could be turned into something useful. By age 11, I taught myself basic electronics and since I learned to read, I would devour every book I could lay my hands on, including reading a set of encyclopaedias we had, from cover to cover. I attended a technical high school where we were taught all the basic skills necessary to make and fix stuff. From carpentry, metal work, fitting and turning to even wiring a house.

I then went on to study electronic engineering at Potchefstroom University and started my own electronics engineering business when I was 23, the same year I became a dad of my first child. When my marriage broke up, I walked away from the business I built after selling what I could and took an offer from my parents to become their farm manager.

My parents had a nursery and around the same time my marriage collapsed, my Dad started setting up a wholesale seedling nursery. So, together him and I and, with occasional help from my brother, we built our own greenhouses which included heating and cooling with temperature control, germination rooms and so on. This was right up my alley being able to utilise my cultivated inventiveness and technical knowledge.

To cut a long story short, I obviously ended up in Australia and spent the most part of the past 21 years solving various very unique problems for people as an engineering consultant and spent 8 of those years doing extensive research on new energy technology.

In short, my childhood cultivated a hunger for knowledge on an extremely broad topic range which I used, to learn how to make shit, with very little resources and sometimes tools. Well, looking at what may lie ahead, this might have not been by accident and maybe I can part some essential knowledge and skills on, which I have acquired over a period of 50 years.

Maybe this might help someone or save someone’s life. Maybe that might be you.