NOTE: This is the beginning of a continuing online novel. Here is the Table of Contents.

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There was much to do and not a lot of time.

Profits were rolling in at the Carlton Center trading floor. But Richard Branson knew his pirates would be exporting 90% or more of those profits back home, to Europe, to Japan, and to China.

What he needed desperately was to create solid investments in South Africa. So to that end I was sent to 111 Commissioner Street, the old Southern Life building now owned by Gerald Leissner’s Apex-Hi. Through what Debbie Wyatt called a “beard company,” seemingly owned locally but actually controlled by Virgin Maverick, we had sub-let two floors of the 18 story building from the Gauteng Department of Education.

It was my first time “off-campus,” and while it was just a walk of a few blocks, I felt a frisson of fear as I made my way over. Everyone knew the country’s reputation, and everyone knew that of the city. Those who had abandoned it had some good reasons, even if I didn’t agree with them.

I felt the fear as a hot flash in my chest as I walked, past stalls and shops and beggars who all claimed to have been tortured for being with the ANC. I didn’t start breathing again until I entered the elevator, but before the door closed I looked across the lobby to see a man I recognized, one of Chief Williams’ men. He nodded, a black man in a business suit, and I felt a little ashamed of my fear, realizing I’d been guarded all the time.

My appointment was on the 17th floor and I laughed as I saw the hand-lettered sign on the doorway, reading Always-On Technologies Ltd. That was the name of my last tech crusade, back in America, a call that wireless networks be treated as a platform, with Internet applications that ran in the air. It seemed a lifetime ago.

It was an open floor plan, the walls blown-out to reveal the skyline and the countryside beyond. Partitions separated a few cubes from the open space. The room was taken up by a drafting table, a set of castered office chairs and a whiteboard, and a coffee machine with two pots, one black and one clear water.

A wide black woman wearing a colorful dress and head scarf stood before the coffee machine. She knocked half of a small metal ball against the table, and I saw something fall into a trash can’s plastic liner. Then she pulled a jar toward her from next to the coffee machine, opened it, and placed the ball inside for a moment. Then she screwed the half-ball back together -- I saw a chain dangling from it – placed it in her large ceramic cup and poured water over it.

Only when all this was done did she turn toward me. “Ah, Mr. Blankenhorn, it is nice to meet you,” she said in what sounded like a heavy British accent. “I am Mma Tatusi Ramosawa, but if you like you may call me Tatu.” Holding the cup in her left hand she extended her right toward me, and I shook it.

Seeing my expression, she laughed and added, “Would you like some bush tea? I find it very calming so high above the ground, don’t you?” I nodded and moved toward the table. But she tut-tutted me, leaned below the table and opened a drawer, pulling out a small metal ball just like the one in her cup. As she prepared my tea she began our meeting.

“I have been reading your blog extensively, Mr. Blankenhorn,” she said, “and I hope to make all your dreams come true, for me. After liberation I went to the Johannesburg Technical College and then built a small business here, building computer networks for local shops. A few years ago we found that WiFi (she pronounced it as though there were a’s and e’s in it somewhere) was the best technical solution for such networks, very low cost, and I became somewhat expert at them. I began reading about what could be done with them and came upon your blog, which I have read quite avidly, like a schoolgirl.

“When I read there that you were coming here, to live, I just had to meet you, to see if I am doing things all right.” She turned back toward me then, holding a second cup. I took it, and she motioned me behind one of the partitions, where there was a desk and two chairs, along with a view of the city.

“My office,” she said, sitting down. “It is not much, but it will be much grander once we get going. We have a loan of r120,000, against equity in a like amount. I have put my entire life savings, r20,000, into this business.” (I did some fast mental calculations, and realized with horror her entire capital amounted to just $40,000.)

“How long can you last on that capital before sales?” I asked.

Mma Tatusi Ramosawa laughed. “You are thinking in American dollars, aren’t you?” she said. “Don’t. Things are different here. This space, for instance, our short-term lease is at the equivalent of 200 of your dollars each month, with utilities an equal amount. My own needs are modest, and we will only hire when we have something to make or to sell, on a contingency basis. I have a good board behind me, thanks to Virgin Maverick. We have enough time to prove ourselves or pffft!” She laughed again.

“But, please, I am here to listen to you. Please tell me some of the ideas you have had lately, and I will try to take them down.”

I have never concerned myself with secrets or money. As an idea man, I feel my worth is that I keep coming up with ideas, which others may hopefully run with. So I didn’t worry about being robbed as I began gabbling to Tatu, as I soon called her.

“Just before I left I learned that Motorola has actually produced a true Always-On server platform, which they call the MS1000,” I said. “It can be upgraded by flash memory, it takes Internet broadband input and delivers 802.11g output. They have even created a line of peripherals for home automation and entertainment. They are looking for companies who will support them with software, hardware and applications, but the important point is they follow the OSGI standards, meaning others could even build gear that is compatible with theirs.

“But that’s just the server portion. What you really need are applications, solutions that people will find value in and that they will buy. Since you have read my work you know I classify these as medical, inventory, and automation applications. Security is an automation application, and I know Virgin Maverick could always use ideas to upgrade their systems.”

“What kind of ideas?”

“Oh, peripherals like motion sensors, maybe heat sensors. They need to know when someone unknown reaches their premises. They need to track these people until security personnel can identify them. They also need to guard small perimeters inside against everyone they have, even insiders. It’s a massive system integration job, and the chief there is very interested in using technology to help him. His name is Willie Williams.”

“Willie Williams?” Mma Ramosawa laughed. “That is a funny name. Willie Williams, Willie Williams.” She wrote it down, shook her head. I saw tears coming from her eyes.

“Best not to laugh at him,” I said. “He is a very serious man, a very important man. He was once chief of police in the city of Los Angeles.”

She startled. “Really? And he is here, too? Oh, that is very impressive. We are truly blessed to have such an important man as Rra Williams here, then.”

“I can talk to him, see what his concerns are, and if you can address some of them I would be happy to set up a meeting,” I said, impulsively. She nodded gratefully, then urged me on.

“I have written often about medical applications, monitors that you could wear and would be attached to programs at the center of the network, which could sound alerts and give instructions,” I said. “I personally have a family history of high blood pressure, so this has always concerned me. But there are many other diseases that require monitoring, like early-stage HIV. To make such systems truly mobile you would have to find ways to link them to cellular networks as well as WiFi, but with companies such as IBM now interested in mobile VoIP it should be easy to find partners for such systems.”

“How would that work?”

“Well, you could embed whatever monitors you need, and what I would call client commuications, into high-end athletic shirts such as those made by Under Armour. In terms of unit cost, the shirts would be the most expensive part of the unit, but this would make them desireable. Then of course you would need some sort of local user interface, some local storage, and some way to communicate data to be analyzed back to the central station. Such units could be the size of a cellular phone, or could run on a PDA like the Treo.”

I saw Mma Ramosawa writing furiously in longhand on her legal pad, the tea untouched by her side. I slowed down to let her hand rest, and picked up my tea cup.

“I think it’s important that when you think about your markets and your opportunities, you think about your export customers first,” I said, gladdened that Mma had stopped with me to take up her tea cup. “We are all growing older. Africa is still a young continent, its poverty makes men the age of Mr. Mandela very unusual. But in places like Europe and Japan such age is becoming very usual. So think about the applications that might make Mr. Mandela’s life easier, assuming he didn’t have a staff and family around to assist him. Many older people in the West don’t, you know.

“I saw a BBC Ground Force show where they built a garden for Mr. Mandela, and I’m sure that garden requires watering, and monitoring to stay green. Both can be done with Always-On technology. Of course, his own health problems require constant attention, so medical applications are a natural. There’s security, of course, heating and air conditioning to keep him comfortable. There are many simple food preparation and cleaning tasks that can be started, or even completed, with a wireless network interface.

“And then there are the memory problems we all encounter as we age. Where are my keys, where is my wallet, where are my pills, did I take them at the right time? My glasses, my robe, or for the grandchildren their schoolbooks. All the things we waste so much time trying to find in our lives, they can all be found. Simply attach RFID tags to these articles, link them to the network, and the network can easily identify their location as a distance and direction from the center. You would want to put tags on all valuables, of course, to protect them, and a security perimeter. Then there are voice interfaces for your network – you can’t expect someone like Mr. Mandela to use a mouse. He should be able to talk to his network, have it hear him, and have it speak to him in a voice that he enjoys and could, if he wanted to, control.”

I realized my mind had gone far away. “As I say, multiply the problems of Mr. Mandela by millions, by tens of millions, by hundreds of millions over time, and you get some sort of idea of the opportunity you have before you,” I concluded. “Once someone buys a central device, and their first application, you just build from that, as you would with a PC.”

“Rra Blankenhorn, I am honored you have come to see me,” Mma Ramosawa said as I slowed down. “Would you be interested in a position on the board of Always-On Technologies?”

I smiled. “Mma, I have been waiting for that invitation all my life.”