From the Editor

That’s where the true progress happens. It’s the tiny details, behind-the-scenes preparation and anonymous effort that gets the biggest results. It took travelling to six countries to bring this magazine together and for me to realise the true power of details. Volvo Trucks flew us out to its home in Gothenburg to unveil what I, at least, thought was the big Tesla-fighting announcement. This wasn’t a long-haul electric truck with an incredible spec sheet, but rather a litany of iterative innovations on existing technologies.

Ducati bagged two Motogp wins on the trot – we were there for the Barcelona one – on the back of equally tiny updates to the way they do things. In the Far East, Taipei, Nvidia and Synology seized Computex as a platform to release products the companies had spent months of small changes creating.

I guess my point is that we sometimes get swept up by the hype of giant leaps and don’t celebrate the small victories enough. It’s Women’s Month in South Africa and we interviewed four extraordinary women who, in their own right, drive the nation forward. They’re not the absolute leaders of their companies, but perform tasks that help get the work done for us normal folk.

These women have to wake up every day and go to work in male- dominated industries. Their fortitude in the face of gender-based obstacles is truly inspiring. We may not notice it, but its hard for a woman to make it in the Popular Mechanics world, and the more we can do as South Africans to normalise the appearance of women in these spaces, the better.

These women spoke at length about their experiences, but obviously we needed to edit out some of it to make room for all of our awesome content this month. You can read the omissions on popularmechanics.co.za. The short version is that we’re doing okay in terms of progression towards a more inclusive society, but need to accelerate our efforts to create a world where everyone can feel comfortable to contribute.

Elsewhere in the magazine, we take a dive into the behind-the-scenes magic that makes the big-budget blockbusters happen as well as try all the body-mod biohacks that are so on-trend right now.

The August issue is a collection of the tiny steps that it takes to make the world work, and celebrates the many small victories needed to get us there. It was an absolute pleasure to produce and I know that you’ll enjoy it.

Until next month,