Great South Africans: Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu Linux

South Africa has produced, I believe more than it’s fair share of high achievers and so this is the first in a series of some of the greatest South Africans of all time. (in no specific order)

Mark Shuttleworth, the young entrepreneur that became the first South African ( and African) in space and was the 2nd self funded space tourist having sold his company, Thawte consulting to Verisign for R3.5 Billion ($574 Milion).

Shuttleworth then piled his money into venture capital projects and the well known free, Ubuntu Linux operating system.

The word “Ubuntu” is the African principal of humanity explained thus by Nelson Mandela:

” A traveller through our country would stop at a village, and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but Ubuntu has various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to improve?”