Judy van Niekerk: Forgiveness=Success
Shawne Duperon: Despite everything that has happened for you, everything you touch turns to gold. Would you just share about the winery and the different things where you have been successful?
Judy van Niekerk: I love wine. I adore wine. I decided I would love to start a winery. But I didn’t want to do it in the Cape, Western Cape, where everywhere else is doing it, where there are 600 other wine farms. I decided to do it in the poorest province in the country, in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Of course, I had to back it with government organizations that rule the industry. Eventually, I eventually won the right to have KwaZulu-Natal designated as a wine region, plant vines and so on and so on. The business was successful. It was great. I mean I won International Woman Winemaker of the World in 2009, and this was somebody who was never on a farm or knew anything about wine before we started. It was incredibly successful, but it still wasn’t satisfying me. There was something missing, and that is when I realized that my calling in life is around empowerment. I only feel a sense of fulfillment when I am empowering, and that comes from my own void, of my own childhood experiences of being overpowered all my life, all my younger years. So my calling in life, my purpose in life is to empower.
Shawne Duperon: Which leads us your newest endeavor, The Digital Bra.
Judy van Niekerk: I absolutely am fascinated by The Digital Bra. I love technology and how it has the capability and the potential to change life globally, to empower people globally. Experiential technology has the potential to solve challenges in the world. What am I suffering from? What do I need solved that I can use experiential technologies to solve it? That’s when I came up with breasts and bras because I am a well-endowed lady. I have hated my breasts all my life because of my father, the way he used to torture me about my breasts. I realized that bras are the most antiquated piece of apparel in society today, and our ideas and needs around bras needs to be taken into the future. Research shows that the majority of women, over 85% of women, wear bras that do not fit. With technology we have come up with the solution, which is The Digital Bra.
