I finished the national school curriculum. Subjects included Mathematics, Science and French, all higher grade and a distinction in English. Of course, I drew in every class.

I got my first official job as the casual manager of a pizza restaurant while studying. I can still recite the menu. I used to practice my drawing on a table near the ingredients...the scent of canned pineapple still makes me reach for a pencil.

I was head-hunted out of college and soon promoted to team lead for South Africa's first international CG animated children's show, Ed and Eppa in the Wild. Sadly this was before the internet hit South-Africa, so I'm having a very hard time finding a relevant link. Last I heard it was dubbed into 9 languages and sold in 11 countries.

I completed my Animation diploma at Boston Media House under the best lecturers I could've asked for. Instead of just software training, our course was built on character development, plot, hookah smoke and a lot of the other skills that make work good. Also, my male lecturer surprised us in a bikini one day for breast-cancer awareness. There are some things you'll never forget.

We completed production on Ed and Eppa, and I had a brief stint in a think-tank/brainstorming hub where I first fell in love with ideation. Sadly, we couldn't secure the funding we needed to keep going, and I moved into commercial work at Luma Animation. There we created many of South Africa's favourite animated commercials. I also developed my Fooseball skills to black-belt.

Head-hunted for an Animation Lead role on Adventures in Zambezia, South Africa's first internationally successful 3D animated feature as far as I know. I moved to beautiful Cape Town for a while and worked with some incredible people. I had my first rear-wheel drive car and was watching Initial-D at the time. Mountain passes had a special allure.

I helped to grow small animation and design studios and elevate the status of bigger ones. I saw amazing growth and awesome international work including special effects for Bollywood.

The animation industry took a massive knock, so I joined forces with my favourite client Luma Animation. With Softimage discontinued we were learning Houdini. What an exceptional tool. It was the god of 3D packages...probably still is.

With the animation industry still having a bad time I decided to join the world of business. I figured maybe I could learn a thing or two. I was picked up by IQbusiness and got stuck in immediately, creating a short animated film as a training piece that won us much acclaim. This was my first exposure to a big company and I love this place. The enthusiasm, sense of purpose and room for growth is only outweighed by the incredible people; all so keen to make the world a better place.

With a renewed passion for learning, I attacked Udemy and Coursera. Some highlights were Gamification courses and a comprehensive Game Design course. Details on LinkedIn.

With exposure to Agile through my employer, I decided to get my PSM-1 Scrum Master certification. I also published an article or two this year. One was on the case for Agility in the graphics industry, and it was pretty well received.

This year kicked off with a bang as I was involved with IQbusiness BasIQs, an exceptional internship programme. I worked with a team of absolutely incredible humans as we prepared for and received, up-skilled and fell in love with some of the brightest young minds South Africa has to offer. This was honestly some of the most fulfilling time of my life. Incredible people, incredible learning curve...just incredible. Now I'm attacking my personal work relentlessly while also pushing the quality of my work for the business to new heights using more and more of the skillset I've been developing on my personal projects.