Who's behind this, and what's actually running under the hood.
Howzit — I'm Ian, and HeyBoet is mine. By day I'm a fractional CTO and Digital Advisor, and just because I don't have enough on my plate already, I own Cyrusher South Africa, bringing the wildly successful e-bike brand onto local roads.
Before that I spent the larger portion of my career with Microsoft in roles as diverse as being in the Internal IT group as well as stints in the Research, Sales and Consulting divisions. More recently I was CEO at nVisionIT.
So what do thirty-odd years in, across public sector, defence and national security, pharmaceuticals, retail and utilities give you? The thread's always been the same: taking a big idea and making it actually work on the ground, not just in a slide deck.
HeyBoet started as that same instinct pointed at something smaller and more fun — a reason to get properly hands-on with what AI-first engineering can build, with nobody's balance sheet on the line but my own curiosity.
I completed my formal studies at Rhodes University, slap bang in the Lower Albany region, and hopefully it shows up in Boet's voice — infused with fantastic Eastern Cape humour and a hunger for a chicken-burger index.
Eight things live under this roof, all sharing the same daily-changing logo and the same dry sense of humour.
Ask Boet anything, hey. Sign in and get a real AI answer (Claude or ChatGPT), grounded with a live web search where it helps. Not signed in, or past your daily limit? You still get clean search links straight away — no dead ends, just a plainer answer.
Point your phone at a barcode and Boet tells you watsit — what's in it, what it does, and how much to trust the answer. Crowdsourced and openly scored for trust, with medicines backed by SAHPRA's own official registry underneath.
A cheeky cost-of-living index built on one thing nearly every country has: a chicken burger. Convert your Rand, see how it's tracked over time, and browse the world map to see who's paying what.
One target between 1 and 365, seven digits, and four operators. Everyone gets the same puzzle each morning. Finding an answer is easy enough — it's finding the short one that takes doing. Scored like golf, with a board for the day, the month and the year.
A variation on the card game Scoundrel: 44 cards, one deck, no second tries. Fight Tokoloshes, wield a Bliksem, drink Umqombothi — and in this version, as much Umqombothi as you draw in a turn, not just the first. Clear the deck and your time goes on the board.
Type a hostname and Boet asks a public probe network to run a real traceroute to it, then plots the hop-by-hop path on a world map, one ping at a time. Named for the Afrikaans slang "daar gaan jy" — there you go.
You and a computer partner against two computer opponents. A full auction first — a trimmed Acol system, not a shortcut to a contract — then the play, then real rubber scoring: games, vulnerability, doubles, slams, honours, the lot.
Named for the basket both "trug" and "canasta" mean in their own languages — Brug's card-table style, Canasta's own rules. You and a computer partner build melds and canastas against two computer opponents, with the option to play your partner's hand yourself instead of leaving it to the computer.
hey boet is a one-person side project — say howzit and ask Boet anything to get started.
Back to the chat →hey boet, Watsit, the Nandex, Boet365, Skelm, Dagatjy, Brug and Trug are all one project, built and run by Ian. Made in South Africa with dry humour and mild peri-peri.