SpacePortLeisure was born out of Raoul Katovsky’s vision for a futuristic experience that would blend 100% entertainment and 100% education and a desire to communicate and share with everyone the wonders of the universe and mankind’s interaction with space. Over the last 11 years SpacePortLeisure has grown from this vision and today is the result of very extensive international investigatory market research and in-depth concept and business development and team building.

SpacePortLeisure is developing world-class “next generation” space, science and technology theme parks, hotels, and mixed used lifestyle urban city destinations, which provide a "space tourism experience" on Planet Earth for those unable to travel into space. The evolving global business, with a focus on China and Western Europe, where it is building significant footprints, spans these lines of businesses.

SpacePortLeisure aims to build a not-for-profit Institute for space, science and technology education that will be attached to each theme park and provide learners with a stimulating environment in which to learn.

To turn our vision into realty, we have assembled a highly professional international SpacePortLeisure Team which includes rocket scientists, theme-park experts, animators, film producers, special effects experts, designers and architects.
We look forward to welcoming you to a SpacePort in the near future as a sponsor, partner, space and technology enthusiast or simply a thrill seeker looking for an unforgettable day out!

Raoul Katovsky – Executive Chairman

Raoul is the visionary behind SpacePortLeisure and has considerable experience in the formation, development and management of organizations during the past 38 years having graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. Raoul first worked in the medical supply industry, launching the first disposable diaper in South Africa, before selling this business to Colgate-Palmolive, where he remained for 11 years, leaving to enter the technology arena and built a highly successful software house that produced a Global Top 5 human resource expert-based decision support solution.

Raoul’s is passionate about technology and began building his vision for SpacePortLeisure in 1996. He spent 2 years researching space and science museums in the USA, Canada, the UK and South East Asia and has since assembled a network of subject matter experts throughout the world.

 

Danny Naidoo - President and CEO

Danny is an electronic engineer by training, holding a Bachelor of Science - Engineering degree and has had an active career in corporate and as an entrepreneur over the last 18 years. He left Microsoft after 5 years as Director of Technology Platforms in April 2007 to resume his interests as an investor and entrepreneur. During his tenure at Microsoft, Danny developed a strong reputation as a strategic thinker and demonstrated world leading competence as a senior executive. He won several performance accolades. The group that Danny ran was a new business that was being incubated and steadily and strategically developed it to full capability in 3.5 years.

He has developed a strong network across the IT industry and is well regarded in government as well as business circles. He conceptualized and pioneered several initiatives that are now strategically core to Microsoft’s drive to secure market share and build customer loyalty.

After 5 years in his first job with AECI in South Africa, Danny resigned in December 1994 as Senior Engineer to start an IT consulting company focusing on industrial information systems and business intelligence. After 5 years of running this company he joined forces for a year with a nationwide consortium that was part of a take over by CS Holdings a leading IT company at the time. Danny joined CS Holdings as result of the take-over and became their CTO. He spent 3 years in that role providing strategic guidance in mergers and acquisitions, technology road-mapping and business planning as well as strategic business development.

Danny is passionate about leveraging technology and the opportunities it brings to enable economic empowerment in the developing world.

Hans Deuze – Senior Vice President, Operations and Development

Hans is a veteran of the entertainment industry and has worked for leading entertainment and theme-park related companies across the globe for the last 25 years. Hans worked for Phillips for 14 years (first in Electronics and then in the Entertainment Division, assisting with the realization of the Disneyland Paris project) and for Disneyland Paris itself for 2½ years and Walt Disney Studios for 2½ years, before becoming a theme park consultant. Hans has been involved with SpacePortLeisure since February 2003. He is also CEO of Latar Entertainment Projects (Proprietary) Limited, the company behind Africa Theme Park Resort (“ATPR”), a US$650 million mix use project intended for a 613 hectare (1,533 acres) site near Johannesburg International Airport. Whilst working at EuroDisney, Deuze had vast experience and training in live show operations and special events. In 2000, Deuze was the operational producer for Walt Disney Studio’s world renown spectacular stunt show called “Moteurs…Action” involving specially designed cars, motor bikes, jet skis and a large cast of actors, stuntmen and technicians.

Hans Deuze, SpacePortLeisures' Senior VP, received the prestigious Disney Imagineer recognition twice over.

Daniel Yang - Vice President: Business Development - China

Daniel was born in China and is now a South African citizen, having immigrated to South Africa during 1991. He is a computer engineer with a Bachelor degree in Computer Science from the Xian Jiaotong University. Daniel is the South African Representative for Xi’an Government National Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone. Daniel was Vice General Manager and Technical Director of Beijing HRH Computer Corp., being based in Beijing. During the past 9 years, his authorized inbound Chinese tour operator business has organized more than 500 business delegations and tours from China to South Africa. Daniel, based in Cape Town, with his extensive knowledge of China and the ICT market, will drive the development of the SpacePortLeisure business in China.

Yasmin Forbes - Director: Business Partner Relationships - Film & Media & ICT Sectors

Yasmin entered the IT industry in 1989 and has held successful sales positions in leading South African and multinational IT companies. With a solid understanding of large account selling, Yasmin converted the City of Cape Town, Provincial Administration of the Western Cape (PAWC) and higher education institutions into multi million major accounts for Hewlett Packard SA. Until November 2006, Yasmin was Branch Manager for Hewlett Packard Cape Town. Yasmin, based in Cape Town, South Africa, and being a high performance computing subject matter expert, is involved with the HPC project working for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research [“CSIR”] and its Center for High Performance Computing in Cape Town as a part-time consultant responsible for interfacing with the ICT sector and academia. Yasmin has facilitated access to the HPC resource for SpacePortLeisure.

Keith “KC” Jones– Content Director

KC has 48 years experience as a film photographer, director and producer having worked through the ranks of the film industry in the United Kingdom.  KC has made high profile movies, TV series, and commercials and will be responsible for the content and themed visualization development at SpacePort Productions, a Cape Town-based subsidiary of SpacePortLeisure. 


Ravi Gajjar - Manager: Business Development - China

Ravi holds a BEng (Civil) degree and a post graduate MSc (IT Management for Construction) diploma. Ravi spent three years at the CSIR in research, business development and project management and two years managing his digital printing business. Ravi, based in Cape Town, has been researching and developing the SpacePortLeisure Digital Entertainment and Electronic Media Business Plan together with Raoul. Ravi is most likely to relocate to China during early 2008 to be on the ground as we move ahead with our Chinese developments initially with two major projects.

 

Kimon Paxinos - Directory: Corporate Finance

Kimon is based in Pretoria and holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Business Management and Economics. He has had 16 years of experience in a cross section of businesses and during the past two years has been providing financial advisory services to Africa Theme Park Resort and SpacePort Leisure.