93. Seven Years Writing for ExoBrain
This week, in the light of some important developments with ExoTech, I thought I should tell the story of my six years’ association with Peter Warren, and my joining the ExoTeam.
After I came over to Britain in June 2013 to attend the inaugural meeting of the Dresser Society, which honors the designs and works of my ancestor, Dr. Christopher Dresser (1834–1904), I decided to remain in the UK. Much as I loved South Africa, there were less and less opportunities for my skills as a film and TV writer/director/producer over there and it seemed as though I would fare better on this rain-swept isle.
It was very tough initially. The fact that I had worked for both BBC TV and ATV many years previously cut no ice whatsoever. Nevertheless, I remained convinced that I had made the right move. My wife Hero had intended to remain in Johannesburg until I became established in Britain; but my daughters Tanya and Xanthe had other ideas. They unceremoniously bought their mother a plane ticket, helped her to cram whatever she could into a couple of suitcases, packed her off to the airport and waved goodbye as she took off for London Heathrow.
Hero arrived and, although seemingly delighted to see me, she was still blowing steam from her ears in a fury over being “deported” by her daughters! She had had no desire to leave South Africa. Although she had lived and studied in England for a couple of years in the 1950s, she was and still is essentially a child of Africa, albeit of Greek Cypriot parentage. I have to pay tribute for her amazing ability to readjust and help me struggle through the early days of our domicile here.
I can say today that both of us miss the bark of baboons, the majestic stalking of lions after their prey and (perhaps above all) the delightful sense of humor and innate willingness to be helpful, which is the mark of the average African. The exception is the greed and corruption of many politicians that give Africa a bad name – not that the politicians in many other parts of the world are exactly squeaky clean!
As we started to settle down to a new life, we made friends and renewed some old acquaintances. One of our new friends was Alan Douglas whom I met during an arts festival. We both read some of our poems at the festival and enjoyed each other’s work, even though our styles were vastly different. One day, Alan called me and asked if I would be interested in some writing work. We got together and he told me about ExoBrain.
There’s a good reason why my blogs are entitled “Confessions of a Technophobe.” It’s not that I’m incapable of grasping basic technical things. It’s more that I’m simply not interested. As a filmmaker, I understood the entire process of making a movie but relied on technicians and specialists to provide me with the expertise to achieve that process. I had the creative spark and overview of what I wanted to see on screen, but needed the team to provide the pictures, sound, editing and so on, that the process of making a movie required.
I immediately saw parallels between my creative filmmaking skills and Peter Warren’s incredible ability to conceptualize an entirely new and infinitely better way of computing than had previously existed. Peter did not have the technical skills to build the system he envisaged, but knew instinctively that he could guide “IT Techies” to create a better computing system than had ever previously existed. Alan explained that Peter was looking for someone to write a book which would trace his life journey to the point where the idea of ExoBrain becomes a reality.
Since returning to Britain, I had already obtained writing commissions for a couple of books on such diverse subjects as the dangers of modern chemically manufactured perfumes and a highly effective form of massage therapy (that encompassed some forgotten nineteenth-century techniques with a modern approach to healing the body). My earlier work of writing corporate training and motivational video scripts (before beginning to concentrate on TV drama series and full-length theatrical feature films) stood me in good stead for writing those books. They were followed by a couple of biographies of two very interesting personalities from Sierra Leone in West Africa.
I told Alan I was very interested in the basic idea of ExoBrain, although the technology of it was probably way beyond me. He then spoke to Peter Warren, who at the time was still living in Cannes, France. Peter then called me and explained that what he wanted was a book that pulled no punches when describing his life and his eventual purpose in developing a computing system that would simplify everything that anyone needed to do with a computer. Alan had already given me the concept that ExoTech operates the way that humans think – instead of current computing that forces humans to think like a computer thinks. That alone gave me hope that here was an innovation that all technically challenged mortals like me could finally operate a computer that did not drive me demented every five minutes.
Peter said that he would only want me to write the book when ExoBrain was substantially funded, and he could pay me to not only write it but also to travel to various places and countries where he had lived – in order to paint an accurate picture of his life and growth into evolving a computing system that would create a paradigm shift in the way people use computers. He insisted that I should delve into every mistake or poor judgement that he has made in this process. His reasoning being to lay out the Peter Warren and ExoTech story in such a way that there would be no further hidden mishaps or mistakes to uncover. There would inevitably be naysayers who would look for flaws or misdemeanors in Peter or his ExoTech patent and exaggerate them with fake news to destroy the entire ExoBrain project.
I agreed to come onboard. As I became more and more excited about what I could learn about ExoTech after watching the 31 introductory videos and even ploughing through (and I mean ploughing) into the vast number of pages of the ExoTech patent, I had sufficient grasp of what ExoTech could do. As a result, I offered to interview Peter on Skype and record his story, even though he could not pay me at that stage.
Peter met and later married Shirley Corriveau, moving to her hometown of Toronto, Canada. From that point the ExoTeam began to grow. There was not enough money for team members to be paid at that stage, but such was the enthusiasm of those team members already enrolled, that they were willing to work on a voluntary basis until funding was achieved. Peter then came up with the bright idea of offering shares in ExoTech that would have a value once the company was funded and the ExoBrain system was launched.
Like most of the early team members, I was very willing to accept shares to be registered in lieu of payment because of my total confidence in the final outcome: the launch of the next vital evolution in computing! As a result of this, I took on the task of writing a weekly blog on the ExoTech website, as well as beginning the first draft of the book on Peter’s life and his development of the ExoBrain system. I’m sure there will be many corrections and additions to that draft and, hopefully, the funds for me to travel to countries like the Ukraine and Uzbekistan where Peter spent a couple of eventful years.
Over the past two or three years, the whole project has taken shape. In addition to a well tried and tested company structure, a number of investments has been made in the company, which has allowed Peter to employ some top-rated technicians to complete the full technology of ExoTech. Previously, in the early 2000s, Peter had spent some millions of his own dollars and raised further finance to develop the technology to a point where a prototype existed. It was, however, far from the finished model Peter had in mind.
Now, with a further team of technicians headed up by Jeff Buhrt, who had joined Peter in 2001, the technology of ExoBrain is finally complete. During last weeks’ weekly Zoom conference for team members, Peter announced that Jeff was now the first fully qualified ExoEngineer and would be known as ExoEngineer One. There will be a further four ExoEngineers trained to the highest standards of the ExoTech technology, thus establishing a hierarchy of excellence to ensure that ExoTechnology is never lost – and now in a position to build the final launch model of ExoBrain.
Furthermore, Peter indicated that, the technology being complete, he has no further technical input to offer. In Peter’s own words re Jeff Buhrt, “He is welcomed to the post in which he will captain the future of planetary computing.”
We suspect that Peter will now put his attention towards developing all the many benefits that ExoTech will provide, not only for ease of computing but also the creation of many humanitarian programs to improve the lot of humankind.
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.