Alberton Record
Albertonian earns PhD after years of dedication
Respected entrepreneur and academic Dr Craig Wing, born and bred in Alberton, was capped Doctor of Electrical Engineering by the University of Johannesburg.
His pathway to a PhD was as much about breaking boundaries of class, race, history, and the self as it was about embodying the goals of SA’s rainbow nation.
After failing some subjects in his first year of engineering, Wing initially doubted his abilities but persevered after realising his strengths were in systems thinking and entrepreneurship and making the connection between them and engineering.
This led to a 26-year career punctuated with starting six businesses, heading small business marketing for Google South Africa, becoming the first African at GoogleX to drive innovation and implementation for corporations, lodging two provisional patents on vision systems and computer components, and even self-converting a car into an electric one.
During this time, Wing overcame several challenges, including shifting career focus, facing imposter syndrome, and navigating complex academic hurdles, such as changing supervisors late into the PhD.
The proof is in the pudding, though, and Wing’s groundbreaking new theory of future preparedness and a resulting start-up, What the Foresight (WTF), helps companies and governments quantify the future and prepare for it based on 30+ indicators.
His unique perspective, as a Chinese minority growing up in apartheid SA and witnessing the post-apartheid transition, provides an acute understanding of how futures and pasts are intertwined.
“From failing my first year in engineering to standing here today as a PhD graduate, the journey has been anything but linear. It’s proof that failure is not the end but part of the process. Engineering is about systems, and in life, as in engineering, we learn from breakdowns and emerge stronger. This achievement reflects my life journey and the resilience, perseverance, and belief that carried me through. To anyone feeling lost or like an imposter, keep going. Success is what you define it to be,” said Wing.
Wing’s “third view”, a unique perspective forged from his diverse heritage and deep understanding of engineering and entrepreneurship, has already seen him excel in several leadership roles, consult for the UN, host a TedX Talk (TEDxAshokaU), give more than 500 keynotes to 5 000 world leaders in more than 50 countries and moderate high-profile sessions, including at the World Economic Forum.
With a PhD under his belt, he says his goal is to “bring transparency to unpredictable events that may shape the trajectory of nations and organisations, ultimately enhancing their capacity to thrive in an ever-changing world by ‘quantifying the unquantifiable’ that is tomorrow.”
