Let me start off by saying that the inaugural Geek Retreat that took place this past weekend (19-21 June 2009) at the beautiful Elephant Sanctuary in Hartebeestpoort wasn’t so much about geeks, Internet professionals, tech journalists, and entrepreneurs getting together and having a good chinwag over a single malt and blazing bonfire as it was about discussing some of the major issues affecting the South African internet space and how to go about solving them. Oh, and did I mention there were pachyderms?

Most would agree that there are only a handful of successful South African Internet entrepreneurs and start-ups when compared to other parts of the world and the Internet hasn’t dramatically impacted the lives of the majority of the South African public or added much to their social upliftment.

The obvious question that popped up frequently over the course of the weekend was: “But should we care?”. There was a general consensus that we should, but for different reasons. Even the most dogmatic capitalists conceded that making money and enriching people’s lives weren’t mutually exclusive and that we all had vested interests in bringing Internet connectivity and entrepreneurship to the masses.

Some of the topics that were discussed in the interactive sessions, included policy, advocacy, skills and education, the future of mass communications, bootstrapping and funding, and online communities. There were also a number of informal “talking head” sessions whereby a participant would facilitate a brief discussion around a particular topic or theme within small groups that rotated every 15 minutes or so. These sessions proved to be very popular as they ensured that everybody had an opportunity to have their say and a lot got covered in a relatively short period of time.

A personal highlight was listening to the experiences and advice of serial entrepreneurs and South African success stories, Vinny Lingham and Gareth Knight, who both now live abroad but made a special effort to attend the event in order to support the initiative and network with like-minded South Africans. One of the pearls of wisdom that I picked up on was that as South Africans we need to be more outward looking and aim our sights at the global market as there’s no reason why a good homegrown idea can’t become a successful international business, and there are already a number of case studies to back this up.

Geek Retreat ’09 was by no means a panacea for solving South Africa’s Internet-related problems, nor did organizers Heather Ford and Justin Spratt intend it to be, but at the very least it allowed a small sample of great minds to discuss the myriad issues affecting both them and the country and to mobilize an enthusiastic team that will work towards making a positive difference.

Only time will tell to what extent it will live up to its mantra (borrowed from Openspaceworld.com):

Never before, and never again will the assembled group gather in this time and place. No one could possibly predict the synergism of effect that will take place when this particular group of people assemble.

For more on the Retreat including participants, session notes, and proposed projects go to the #geekretreat wiki.

Also read: Toby Shapshak’s Pattern Recognition column