Storage out on a limb

Western Digital and Drive Control Corporation is assisting the Out on a Limb aid project by donating a dozen 1TB WD Passport portable hard drives and a WD Sentinel central storage solution.

An expedition that began as a life-affirming adventure for Bushy McKelvey, who lost both of his legs in two separate motorbike accidents, has evolved into Out On A Limb (OOAL), a multinational aid project starting in Southern Africa, with a television series in the making. Western Digital, in association with distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC), is assisting OOAL by donating a dozen much-needed 1TB WD Passport portable hard drives in rugged casings and a workhorse WD Sentinel central storage solution.

‚Using WD drives, the production team and crew from OOAL will be able to safely store their footage throughout the expedition on rugged, reliable storage drives. They will also be able to send it back to Johannesburg for secure storage on the central Sentinel server. All our footage will be safe and ready for editing and postproduction. Our end goal is to turn this incredible expedition into an entertaining and enlightening television series,‚ says Derrick Swanepoel, associate producer for In the Dark Productions, and OOAL producer.

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The OOAL expedition is no simple project, and combines a number of different facets. In The Dark Productions will be filming the entire expedition with the aim of making a television series that will air once the expedition is over. For the first season, Bushy and the boys will be touring Southern Africa on his motorbike, and visiting Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho.

At each stop, the team will be visiting two small charitable initiatives, one focusing on the environment and one on humanitarian deeds.Some of the non profit organisations OOAL are visiting and hope to raise awareness for: Durbanville Quadriplegic Centre, Seal Alert, N/a’an ku se, Milk Matters, Motse wa Tshologelo, Mother Africa and Aptart. As part of the project Bushy will also be given an extreme challenge to complete in every country he visits.

Accompanying Bushy are an entire crew, including cameramen, sound and production, ex-Off-Road Champion, wingman and mechanic Hylton Smith, Dr Daemon McClunan and English conservationist Aaron Gekoski (aka Bertie). McClunan will be adding to the humanitarian nature of the expedition, by conducting a total of 1000 eye examinations. Bertie meanwhile, will be delving into some of Africa’s most pertinent and poignant wildlife crises.

‚Documenting these small NPO’s is what will hold this entire expedition together, and as a result hard drives are the integral to the project’s success. We will be on the road for three months: filming daily and gathering data. If we couldn’t backup our data and store our film footage we wouldn’t have anything to show for our expedition. And if we didn’t have anything to show for our expedition we wouldn’t have a TV series. And if we didn’t have a TV series we wouldn’t be able to offer these incredible initiatives the exposure they so desperately need. Thank you to Western Digital and all of our other sponsors, without them OOAL would not be possible,‚ Swanepoel adds.

‚OOAL aims to support some of the less publicised and smaller charities and individuals: people that are working, often without the resources, from the grassroots up to make a difference. By helping them to raise their profiles, create awareness and develop an online presence, OOAL is generating a sustainable future for organisations that many of us have never even heard of. We are proud to be able to assist this expedition in such a meaningful and material way, and we look forward to watching their progress over the next few months,‚ says Anamika Budree, Western Digital Country Manager ‚ South Africa.

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