Alan Knott-Craig is a South African entrepreneur and author
Background
Knott-Craig was born on 14 August 1977 at the Louise Botha foster home in Pretoria where his parents were paid a stipend and given free accommodation to be foster parents. His early school career was at home where his mother, a qualified teacher, ran a kindergarten.
Education
In 1996 he was accepted for a Bachelor of Commerce Accounting at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (formerly University of Portuguese Elizabeth). He graduated in 1998, and completed his postgraduate degree, B Com Honours in Accounting, in 1999.
Career
In 1980 his family moved to Wingate Park, Pretoria, where he lived until he left school in 1995. At age 6 he went to Glenstantia Primary School, graduating to the Glen High School, Pretoria in 1991. He did his articles at Deloitte Cape Town between 2000 and 2002.
Knott-Craig qualified as a Chartered Accountant (Société Anonyme) at the end of 2002.
He worked in the New York City office of Deloitte United States of America for a short period. He returned to South Africa and In October 2003 he founded Cellfind, one of South Africa’s first mobile-location-based service providers and served as Chief Executive Officer until 2005.
In 2006 he was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of iBurst and built one of South African’s largest wireless broadband networks. In 2010 he founded and became Chief Executive Officer of World of Avatar, an investment house for apps for Africa and later acquired and became Chief Executive Officer of Mxit, Africa’s biggest social network.
He left Mxit and World of Avatar in October 2012 after a disagreement with his partners.
In 2013 he founded and became Chief Executive Officer of Project Isizwe, a non-profit company managing the deployment of the largest public Free Wi-Fi network in South Africa. In 2015 he also executive chairman of Herotel a wireless broadband provider in South Africa, Happimo Non-Player Character, and Ever Africa. Between 2003 and 2013 he co-founded and/or funded 17 companies in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector in Africa, including Cellfind, Lucky Mobile, iFind34600, COLV, World of Avatar, Toodu, FSMS, Triloq, 6th Lincolnshire, Daily Maverick, American Red Cross Telecoms, Pondering Panda, MorMor Media, and Boom.fm.