Black Box Durban

15/12/2022

If you haven't seen, we've been featured in the and Good Hood Stories, season 2.

Our crisis map made it into one of four stories that this season of mini documentaries focusses on, aligning to the theme of local urban innovations that have brought impact to citizens.

So sit back, grab a beer and have a watch. See some of the cool work that citizens have done around the country!

Link in bio
ventures

13/12/2022

Are you a fan of local arts and culture?

We're doing research on how to stimulate local creative economies for a potential online platform. The idea is that it will connect artists to one another and to the public by making use of underutiziled urban spaces! If you're a fan of local arts and culture, please fill in and share with friends and family to help us design something useful!

Link: https://zl3kc00ab7t.typeform.com/c/IpsOcifQ

28/09/2022

KZN Invest Magazine shares our story as we mark the start of the campaign, a partnership between ourselves and the Thuli Madonsela Foundation - THUMA.
28 Days of meals shared across the country, across tables and in the homes and spaces within our communities, sparking meaningful conversation around what democracy means, and how we intend to deepen and anchor it in our country.

Join us, as we celebrate, reflect and collaborate - find out more about the campaign: https://bit.ly/3rfekHU

Thulisile Madonsela

Callum Oberholzer is the director of a tech company, Black Box, that is involved in a project that could give social cohesion a much-needed boost.

28/09/2022

If you want to know a little bit more of our story, and what we've been up to the last little while, this is a great write up by KZN Invest Magazine. We're grateful to be featured, thank you Greg Arde!

Callum Oberholzer is the director of a tech company, Black Box, that is involved in a project that could give social cohesion a much-needed boost.

18/09/2022

The crew 💛 We spent Friday morning filming for a mini documtary being done by the South African Cities Network and on the crisis map we built, for their Good Hood stories initiative. Excited to share it with you when the editing is done! 🎬

25/07/2022

Meet New People & Experience Local Food!

We love people, and we love local food. Have you seen our OpenSeat product yet? We’re super excited about it. We’ve been launching it in Durban, with the vision of connecting different people over local food experiences.

Think AirBnB meets Come Dine with Me. It’s your new platform where you can browse food experiences, all hosted by locals in their homes or empty city spaces!

If you love hosting, you can host anything from a pizza, wine and book club or games night, through to a fine dining experience in your garage. You set your price, share your event, and OpenSeat handles the rest until the day. Basically, if you have any creative idea that involves food and creates the opportunity for people to get to know one another, this is the platform for you to start creating, and potentially even earning an extra income stream from.

On the other hand, if you love meeting new people in the city and enjoy creative, local food, then find an event on our platform that suits your taste. We’re all about meeting new people over local food in empty city spaces.

So tell a mate, bring a mate - and let’s create!

https://www.openseat.co.za/

P.S: Did we mention that, as a host, you set the price, and keep the profits?

20/07/2022

Black Box Quarterly Newsletter - Better Late Than Never! 💁 - https://mailchi.mp/aed31305526a/black-box-july-newsletter

14/07/2022

In April 2022, over 40 000 people in KZN were displaced due to flooding. This came as another devastating blow to the province after 2021’s civil unrest, which in itself, had a disastrous impact on communities, the economy and South Africans’ trust in the nation’s ability to act in times of crisis.

A critical insight that arose from the unrest was the lack of collaborative disaster management, and no live mapping or tracking of impact, need or resource distribution. So when the floods hit, we, along with our partners from Heal Our Land and Pista, chose to act.

In 36 hours, the Crisis Map was live - providing a live, mapped environment for users to either capture their need or log a resource they could provide to those in need, along with their contact details and location. Within 28 days, had over 27 000 users.

Nkululeko Mthembu, our partner from Pista, captures the conceptualisation, collaboration, engineering and resulting data that followed in this article: https://bit.ly/3IEYTR7

Have a read, and let us know your thoughts!

14/04/2022

Hi all,

We've been working frantically with a Nkululeko from https://pista.co.za/ to build a real-time solution to track what's happening on the ground during the disaster.

As people log entries a pin pops up on the map with details.
Users also have the ability to assist others, and then log that assistance on the need marker on the app.

The vision here is to get an overview on the ground so that Government, NGO's and NPO's can steward resource effectively.

This platform is for anyone to use relating to the current floods. If you have a need, or a resource, please log it with detail.

Feel free to share.

https://crisismap.black-box.io

22/02/2022

📣 We're on the lookout for an experienced Product Designer, with refined UX/UI and Human-Centred design skills.
Think you could be a match?
Apply here: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/1655865179/

01/02/2022

Our first Quarterly Newsletter of the year is out! - https://mailchi.mp/c59813312e2e/ame1ksmwe1-15780896
In this release we look at design systems, new postures, current and future products as well as how one of partners built an application in 48 hours that went viral.

17/12/2021

Black Box founder, Callum Oberholzer, shares his thoughts as he reflects on 2021's many challenges, opportunities and learnings as well as his hopes and predictions for the future as a company, country and as human beings.

Black Box founder, Callum Oberholzer, shares his thoughts as he reflects on 2021's many challenges, opportunities and learnings as well as his hopes and pred...