It is unfortunate that most heroes are never mentioned or known to the world, with them operating under cover, deep behind enemy lines and often unselfishly fighting for everyone but themselves. I am, however, not nostalgic and talking about the war heroes of the many wars that have raged on planet Terra, instead I am referring to the heroes in the information technology world, making a huge difference to the South-African IT communities.
My definition for a hero is a person who goes beyond the expectations, shows relentless passion and energy and is willing to push the boundaries, for the good of the community.
... often the Heroes are the last left, when the going gets tough!
The list is long and I am likely to omit someone ... but as it is more important to start the list and add names until the list is complete, I herewith present my list of heroes in the "South-African" IT communities I am exposed to, listed in no specific order:
| Name | Nomination |
| Almero Steyn | He created all the artwork for our interoperability drive, relentlessly making changes as we requested more and more changes. |
| Charles Sterling “Chuck” | Located in Redmond, “Chuck”, has supported us in hard times, downloading huge amounts of software, bits and pieces, which we needed but were unable to download in time for local community initiatives. |
| Henk Du Plessis “Mumbles”
 | Our very own interoperability “Mumbles”, defending neither the open-source or other trenches, but standing in the middle of no-man’s land and helping us bridge the troubled interoperability environments and making seamless and invaluable integration and interoperability a possibility. He is very active in the academic community and hosting technology readiness sessions, available to SA Architect members.
|
| Hilton Giesenow
MVP | One of our architecture champions, sharing experience and knowledge with the professional and academic communities. |
| Jeff Beehler
 | Located in Redmond, Jeff has supported SA by managing the “stage coach” disk drive we exchange on a regular basis to solve our limited bandwidth problems. He also publically wore the MVP Interoperability jacket, demonstrating the support for interoperability and giving our initiative unbelievable credibility. |
| Martin Woodward
 | Located in the UK, Martin has supported us and our academic initiatives, allowing us to realise our interoperability vision and bringing the amazing TeamPrise technology to the students of today and IT professionals of tomorrow. Thanks to Martin, we recently received an amazing sponsorship of $20,000 for TeamPrise technologies, which we are able to share with the academic community and promote the development environment in the real world ... an integrated one q;-) |
| Nicolas Blank
MVP | No event is complete without Nicolas’ smile and enthusiasm. He assisted us with Exchange issues in his own time with so much enthusiasm and professionalism, that one would like to |
| Robert MacLean | Everyone will know him in the BizTalk and SharePoint communities ... he is freely sharing his brain storage and is actively hosting technology readiness sessions, available to SA Architect members. |
| Ruari Plint
 | Our very own MVP Program manager, making the impossible, possible, worrying about politics, taking care of the MVPs and allowing us to focus on what is important, the communities. Also known to arrange strange competitions at TechED, i.e. hunt the MVPs, which can lead to stressful times ... |
| Ryan CrawCour | Having a problem with BizTalk? This is the champ to talk to and the pillar behind the BizTalk community in South-Africa. |
| Willie Roberts | The dude that motivates his students in class, is active in the communities, relentlessly manages the community stand at TechED and more recently busy in bringing the numerous IT communities together ... a difficult, but essential mission. TechED without Willie would not be worth going to if you are part of the communities and next time please visit his community lounge!!! |
| Zayd Kara
 (Henk & Zayd) | Active as the “server dude”, evangelist of automated builds and most recently our very own certified scrum master. He is active in the academic community and hosting technology readiness sessions, available to SA Architect members. |
| Zlatan Dzinic “Bulldog”
MVP
 | Infamous “Bulldog” ... not only does he write widgets in his spare time for the communities, not only does he host amazing technology sessions and discussions, but he is active in both the professional and academic communities. |
People to watch ... will likely join the heroes list soon:
| Name | Nomination |
| Herman Nolte
 | Our very own UI, WPF and Silverlight evangelist ... if only he would start sharing his wealth of knowledge and information in a blog. Nudge, nudge, ... |
| Garret Besser | The dude with immense energy and knowledge ... where are you Garret? |
| Paulo Fereira | The chap at Microsoft South-Africa, supporting us with the interoperability drive and ensuring that the mind set in terms of integration and interoperability evolves with many of the vendors and standards bodies in South-Africa. |
"Heroes", thank you for all your efforts, for unselfishly sharing information, for investing an incredible amount of personal time, for caring about the communities and for making South-Africa a better and stronger "IT place".
We bow in front of you!
If we went beyond the South-African borders we would need to list all of the TFS/VSTS MVPs and the VSTS Product Group members, both of which "rock!", but for the time being, I will constrain the list to South-Africa.