Gil Hockman has started a rad project called ‘the joburg‘ – an open calendar for events happening in Johannesburg. It’s a total community-driven, non-commercial project – factors which I think will make it grow exponentially in the future.

According to Gil,

The way it works is a follows:

Google have a very cunning online setup called Google Calender (you can link to it very easily with or without a Gmail account). One of the features of Google Calender is that you can create a calender and share it with a whole bunch of people. Any of these people can then add events to the calender.

So we have created a Google Calender for events that are happening in Joburg and then linked it to this page, which is visible to anyone on the internet. Now, whenever anyone adds and event (a gig, exhibition, show, etc) to the calender, this site is automatically updated.

Easy peasy.

This is a free project. No one is paid and no one makes any money. There is one guy who has registered the Domain name but it only costs about R150 year and he’s cool to pay it.

How to add events:

Step 1) Email thething@thejoburg.co.za to say that you want to add an event

Step 2) You will be linked to The Joburg’s Google Calender (if you do not have a Google Calender account you will need to sign up for one, This it is very easy. All that is required in an email address – and it doesn’t even have to be on Gmail)

Step 3) Login to your Google Calender account

Step 4) Click on the appropriate date on the calender and add your event

If you need any help with this or have any comments or suggestions, email thething@thejoburg.co.za

(ps, this is not a Google project in any way but they do have loads of useful free stuff)