Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Futuristic ZaiTruck tunes in to Voices of Humanity
8 ‘Space truck’ shares culture on a trip the length of Africa
THE Cape to Cairo route is a journey that takes travellers over 12 000km of the African continent’s toughest terrain and this month the futuristic ZaiTruck completed the trek in 10 weeks.
The idea for the ZaiTruck came from software company ZaiLab’s chief executive,
Nour Addine Ayyoub, who wanted to find out if a truck could be stripped down to its chassis and built into a customdesigned innovative vehicle.
The custom-made truck has been built on a militarygrade 6x6 MAN KAT chassis and features a central driving position, with the design of the bodywork drawing inspiration from the science-fiction films Tron, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars.
The truck seats five to six people; has touch-screen displays; cameras; a media centre; solar panels; a kitchen; two water tanks for fresh and grey water, as well as a sink and two fridges.
“I love science-fiction movies and for that reason I take a lot of inspiration from them… so why not create a truck that looks like it’s from the future?” said Ayyoub.
He said throughout the truck’s travels people were surprised to hear it was designed and made in Cape Town and could not believe it was an African product.
“There are always the same questions – two questions – ‘What is this and what’s in the back of the truck?’”
Ayyoub put together a team consisting of himself; Dominique Vandenhoudt, a videographer, and Roelf Mulder, an industrial designer, for the Cape to Cairo journey in the ZaiTruck.
The team set off in September and made the journey through Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan before arriving in Egypt.
“We were stuck for almost three weeks at the border between Sudan and Egypt because Egypt is going through a difficult time with all the terrorism attacks…
“Because the truck is so unusual the police didn’t know what to do. It attracts a lot of attention and that can be both positive and negative,” he said.
Ayyoub used the ZaiTruck as a vehicle, a travelling home and studio in conjunction with his Ayyoub Foundation project Voices of Humanity. The idea behind the project is to record the lived experience of people across the continent, to document and share the “literal voices of humanity”.
“In the back of the truck, we installed a small TV studio where we interviewed people we met on the journey. They all answered to the same set of questions like, ‘What does love mean to you? What are your dreams? What do you want for your children?’”
It was a set of 10 questions. The interviews were uploaded onto the Voices of Humanity YouTube channel and at every stop the team set up a mobile theatre and showed locals selected interviews of previous participants to act as a cultural connector.
The truck and team are already onto their next adventure, which will take them through Europe and the US where they will attend the Enterprise Connect Expo in Orlando in March.
“At this moment, the ZaiTruck is on a ro-ro (roll on/ roll off) ship towards Genoa in Italy. From there it will travel to Antwerp. Next step on our journey is New York…
“The second part of this amazing trip will be different, it will be to promote ZaiLab. The ZaiTruck will showcase our ability as a Cape Town company to be at the forefront of innovation,” he said.