Drew Wessels

I am a 30 year veteran of the South African Film and TV industry and I have the scars to prove it. After engaging in two large international productions in 2023, I consciously made a decision to lay my tools down and dedicate what little time and energy I have left in the service of changing the nature of the exchange between creative and client. This is already happening and it will happen with or without me because the technologies to make this happen already exist. I was offered a post to teach at Wits University with the Film & TV department. Having spent a number of years in and out of the institution, I was more than happy to take on a more substantial role and agreed to create an XR (Extended Reality) course. I named it Inner Reality and went about trying to, not teach, but inspire my students. To inspire imaginative thought, because I know this is the skillset of the future. In a moment of synchronicity, I came across my now co-lecturer and now Institutional Change Coach for the department. We almost immediately realised the profound overlap between her work in AI and Diversity & Inclusion and what I was teaching. I was then offered a post as Multimedia Developer for the Wits Anglo American Digital Dome, a multi-million rand investment into the future of education, training and research. Mbali and I immediately recognised the incredible opportunity of using the launch video I had been employed to make as a real world opportunity for our students to be involved in something momentous. Whether anybody is aware or not, the exponential technologies we have at our disposal are exactly that! Exponential! We have been hurled into the future by ourselves without even having the time to see what hit us. But the most exciting thing for me is that all of these technologies are merely a gateway to a more evolved society in which everyone can engage. Lofty ideals! We are human so we are likely to mess it up, but we can try. The key word here is WE. We are all one humanity. If we really come to terms with the notion that because we are singularly and utterly unique and live in a multiverse of just under 8 billion, we can start to understand that the only way for us to rise is together.