llm.txt
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Plain-text profile snapshot for LLM context. Source: Notion-backed personal site.

Professional Summary
====================
Name: Arno Scholtz
Title: Operations leader | Engineering systems | AI-enabled execution
Summary: Operations and engineering leader scaling IoT and energy hardware from early deployments to 15,000+ field units. I build the operating systems behind that scale: supply chain, contract manufacturing, logistics, field operations, BI, AI tooling, fleet monitoring, and team processes that make delivery measurable and repeatable.
Website: https://www.scholtz.dpdns.org
Focus areas: Arno Scholtz, operations leadership, engineering portfolio, AI systems, IoT operations, business intelligence, technical infrastructure, field operations, operational automation, Cape Town

Professional Experience
=======================
- People Leadership & Team Operations (Leadership | 2012 - Present)
  Led people systems across live-event operations, startup execution, and multidisciplinary technical teams, with responsibility for hiring, coaching, performance management, and delivery rhythm under growth pressure.
  - 52 hires across BridgIoT and Plentify, spanning finance, support, operations, hardware, firmware, and software roles.
  - 57 team members directly managed or coached across operational, technical, intern, and contractor groups.
  - Experience ranges from small tactical teams to large event crews of up to 200 people.
  - Handled structured feedback, performance processes, and constrained-period retrenchment involvement with documentation discipline.
- Investment Sourcing & Deal Execution (Leadership | 2018 - 2023)
  Led CEO-level investment and commercialisation work for BridgIoT, turning post-CSI funding pressure into a formal fundraising, grant, partnership, and strategic-transition process.
  - Built investor narrative, governance packs, and diligence-ready materials after the Shoprite CSI funding gap.
  - Managed grant and institutional funding workflows, including IDC and TIA-facing processes.
  - Advanced strategic conversations and captured deal lessons around timing, counterpart fit, and term risk.
  - Structured JV and commercialisation work with Genric and TechITEZ in the SafeHomes context.
  - Supported the Macrocomm investment path and downstream transition into Livewire.
- Ground-up OHS: BridgIoT to Plentify (Operations | 2018 - Present)
  Built occupational health and safety systems from a blank slate twice: first for BridgIoT under investor-visible startup conditions, then for Plentify's mixed warehouse, office, and water-electrical R&D site. In both cases the goal was a working operating system, not a policy file.
  - BridgIoT: built policy, HIRA, inspection, training, emergency, first-aid, fire, incident, SHE-rep, and document-control foundations.
  - Plentify: built H&S plans, legal appointments, competency evidence, risk assessments, safe-work procedures, toolbox talks, emergency preparedness, chemical and contractor controls, inspections, inductions, committee cadence, incident investigation, legal audit, and management review.
  - Kept public claims to evidence categories only, without exposing certificates, scans, private folder paths, or sensitive compliance records.

Roles
=====
- Director of Operations (Plentify | 2023 - present | Cape Town, South Africa)
  website: https://plentify.io/
  Own operations for a distributed energy and IoT hardware business: field operations, customer service, logistics, procurement, contract manufacturing, facilities, health and safety, and the tooling used to manage scale. The role combines day-to-day execution with systems building across forecasting, production planning, fleet monitoring, and business intelligence.
  - Scaled deployed hardware from roughly 300 to 15,000+ field units and supported a 25,000-unit procurement programme without stockouts through volatile demand.
  - Drove a roughly 12x throughput increase during a high-growth phase by combining outsourced manufacturing with disciplined planning and operational cadence.
  - Built production-planning and working-capital tooling for forecasting, debt-coverage views, procurement decisions, and investor reporting.
  - Raised fleet monitoring capacity from about 2,500 to 15,000+ devices per operator-day through automation, diagnostics, and better review workflows.
  - Negotiated logistics and manufacturing improvements that materially improved landed cost, payment timing, and operating flexibility.
- Product Owner (3BO | Jun 2022 - Aug 2025 | South Africa (remote))
  website: https://www.3bo.mobi/
  Product ownership for a bicycle and last-mile asset tracking platform focused on theft response, recovery workflows, WhatsApp command flows, dashboards, telemetry, and partner escalation. The role is product management, QA, backlog, workflow design, and launch alignment rather than sole engineering ownership.
  - Translated tracker, telemetry, WhatsApp, dashboard, and recovery-service needs into product requirements and delivery priorities.
  - Managed backlog trade-offs across customer experience, operational support, QA, security-company listener workflows, and launch readiness.
  - Kept public-facing product narrative aligned with what had been implemented, tested, or planned without overstating engineering ownership.
- Head of Engineering Services (Livewire | 2022 - 2023 | Cape Town, South Africa)
  website: https://livewire.co.za/
  Led engineering-services delivery during BridgIoT's post-investment transition into Livewire, coordinating project management, field operations, delivery quality, and cross-team communication across smart-metering and utility-data work.
  - Led engineering and field teams through high-pressure delivery windows after the BridgIoT transition.
  - Improved cross-team communication, delivery cadence, and visibility across engineering services and operations.
  - Initiated hiring across six roles in technical, support, and operational functions.
- CEO (BridgIoT | 2018 - 2023 | Cape Town, South Africa)
  website: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212428420300190
  Led BridgIoT from startup execution through strategic investment and transition, spanning fundraising, product and hardware delivery, water-metering deployments, team building, customer delivery, and commercialisation work with partners.
  - Deployed roughly R15m in project funding and secured strategic investment from Macrocomm.
  - Delivered school potable-water monitoring with Shoprite CSI and partners across roughly 350 schools, contributing to about 720 million litres of water saved and about R52m in water savings realised.
  - Structured commercialisation and legal pathways with Genric and TechITEZ in the SafeHomes context.
  - Built investor, grant, and governance material across private and institutional funding discussions.
- Lab Manager & Research Assistant (Stellenbosch University | 2017 - 2018 | Stellenbosch, South Africa)
  website: https://www0.sun.ac.za/mateng/
  Managed materials-science laboratory operations while supporting research and student work: equipment scheduling, microscopy and testing workflows, maintenance, procurement, user training, and research assistance in a mechanical and mechatronic engineering environment.
  - Coordinated equipment access, maintenance, procurement, and user support across laboratory workflows.
  - Supported materials-science research with sample preparation, testing, microscopy, and technical documentation.
  - Trained users on lab procedures and helped keep research work moving through constrained equipment capacity.
- Manager (Nutickets & Howler | 2012 - 2017 | South Africa)
  website: https://www.howler.co.za/
  Managed event technology operations for ticketing and cashless payment deployments across live events, coordinating temporary crews, hardware readiness, access control, cashups, reconciliation, client support, and post-event reporting.
  - Led staffing, shift planning, hardware readiness, and on-site operational control across event deployments.
  - Handled cashups, reconciliation, client support, issue response, and post-event reporting.
  - Built early operating discipline across temporary teams, physical hardware, and high-pressure live environments.
- Event Operations Crew (Dirtopia | 2012 - 2017 | Stellenbosch, South Africa)
  website: https://www.dirtopia.co.za/
  Supported trail running and mountain biking event operations through physical setup, breakdown, water-station logistics, and on-the-ground race-day support. This early operations work built practical discipline around temporary teams, outdoor event constraints, and physical execution under time pressure.
  - Performed physical setup and breakdown for trail running and cycling events.
  - Set up and cleared water stations for participants and crews.
  - Supported on-the-ground event logistics and manual operations across race days.

Education
=========
- MEng (Materials Science (Cum Laude)) - Stellenbosch University | 2016 - 2018 | Stellenbosch, South Africa
  - Cum Laude master's degree with postgraduate project: MEng Copper Infiltration Study, focused on copper sinter-infiltration for conventional ferrous powder metallurgy.
  - The project combined pusher-furnace refurbishment, process-gas calibration, delubrication experiments, transient atmosphere control, metallographic preparation, SEM/EDS microscopy, defect diagnosis, and process-guideline development.
  - Strengthened materials, manufacturing, test-method, furnace-control, and failure-analysis grounding that still informs hardware operations, supplier discussions, process validation, and design-for-manufacture decisions.
- BEng (Mechanical Engineering) - Stellenbosch University | 2012 - 2015 | Stellenbosch, South Africa
  - Mechanical engineering degree with final-year project: BEng FAST Apparatus Refinement, a refinement and validation of a low-power Field Assisted Sintering Technique research apparatus.
  - The project combined mechanical redesign, FEM and COMSOL multiphysics modelling, electrical/sealing repairs, graphite punch commissioning, sintering trials, density testing, microscopy, and techno-economic reporting.
  - Built practical grounding in mechanical design, CAD, experimental setup, technical communication, budget discipline, and engineering trade-offs before moving into operations and hardware-business execution.
- Anti-doping Course (Sport Integrity and Compliance) - WADA / Anti-Doping Training | Sep 2025 | International
  - Sourced from Airtable Document Storage & Renewal.
- WFDF Advanced Rules Accreditation (Sport Rules Accreditation) - World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) | Sep 2025 | International
  - Sourced from Airtable Document Storage & Renewal.
- WFDF Standard Rules Accreditation (Sport Rules Accreditation) - World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) | Sep 2018 | International
  - Sourced from Airtable Document Storage & Renewal.
- Driver's License (Code B) (Transport) - Department of Transport | Jan 2011 | South Africa
  - Licensed Code B driver.
- First Aid (First Aid) - First-Aid Training SA | Apr 2017 - Apr 2020 | South Africa
  - Credential ID: 17/7086.
- Firearm Competency (Firearms Handling) - South African Police Service (SAPS) | Jul 2017 - Jul 2022 | South Africa
  - Credential ID: C7432438.
- NAUI Open Water Scuba Diver (Diving) - NAUI Worldwide | May 2017 | International
  - Credential ID: 2237B736-0327-4816-AA53-2100053871FB.
- Killarney Advanced Driving Course on Defensive Driving (Defensive Driving) - Killarney Training Centre | Oct 2016 - Oct 2018 | South Africa
  - Credential ID: 8801/10/16.
- Short Range VHF Radio (Radio Operation) - South African Maritime Safety Authority | Jun 2017 | South Africa
  - Credential ID: SRC - CTN - 0000002530.
- Maritime Emergency Care (First Aid) - Department of Labour | Sep 2017 - Sep 2020 | South Africa
  - Credential ID: MEC/09/161.
- Basic Fire Fighting (Emergency Response) - Koeberg Emergency Services Training Centre | Jul 2017 - Jul 2020 | South Africa
  - Credential ID: NSRI 10 2/2017.
- Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver (Diving) - PADI | May 2023 | International
  - Credential ID: 2305UL1442.
- Whale Disentanglement (Marine Safety) - South African Whale Disentanglement Network | Feb 2018 | South Africa
  - Specialized marine rescue and disentanglement training.
- Scientific Writing (Report Writing) - Stellenbosch University Language Centre | Sep 2016 | Stellenbosch, South Africa
  - Formal training in scientific and technical writing.
- National Small Vessel Certificate of Competence (Skippers) (Maritime Operations) - South African Maritime Safety Authority | Sep 2018 | South Africa
  - Credential ID: SVC-0049079-S.
- POPIA (Data Protection and Compliance) - Moonstone Business School of Excellence | Apr 2023 | South Africa
  - Completed POPIA compliance training.
- Breaking Bias Foundations - Plentify (Inclusive Leadership) - BE MORE with Anu | Oct 2024 | Online
  - Credential ID: hlywudzeg2.
- Animal Behaviour and Welfare (Animal Behavior and Ethology) - Coursera | Oct 2016 | Online
  - Course exploring animal welfare science across agriculture, research, and pets. Focus on behavioral, physiological, and psychological welfare assessment and ethical principles.

Projects
========
- Avocado Legal Corpus: retrieval infrastructure (repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/dify)
  Deployed and operate Avocado Legal Corpus, a South African legal retrieval platform that turns public legal sources into searchable, cited evidence. The system discovers and registers source URLs, downloads PDFs and HTML, processes layout-aware OCR, splits gazettes, manages review queues, and schedules vector ingestion from a registry of more than 100,000 source records. It chunks files with page metadata, embeds them with BGE, upserts Qdrant collections, exposes health/search/status APIs, and serves MCP tools that return quoted legal passages with citations rather than generic AI answers.
  Stack: Software Development, Internal tooling, SQL, Operations, AI Engineering, RAG
- Vacation rental websites: Hiddingh Village & Nautica (live: https://hiddingh-village.scholtz.dpdns.org; Nautica live site: https://nautica.scholtz.dpdns.org; repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/hiddingh-village)
  Built two production rental-property websites, Hiddingh Village and Nautica, from a reusable Next.js and Cloudflare deployment pattern. Each site has its own brand, domain, map link, inquiry flow, Notion-managed content, and Google Drive image gallery, while sharing the same reliable publishing model. The result is a repeatable small-property website system: owners can update copy and imagery through familiar tools, and each public site remains fast, maintainable, and tailored to the property instead of becoming a fragile one-off static page.
  Stack: Software Development, Internal tooling, Operations
- OpenClaw Personal: self-hosted multi-agent operations platform
  Built and operate OpenClaw Personal, a self-hosted multi-agent operations platform that coordinates specialist assistants across research, task management, retrieval, compliance, procurement, and infrastructure workflows. The project brings together agent identities, model fallback tiers, MCP integrations, skills, plugins, deployment automation, scheduled maintenance, and knowledge-map tooling into one governed runtime. Its value is not another chatbot; it is a durable personal automation layer with clear responsibilities, auditable workflows, and reusable integration patterns.
  Stack: Software Development, Operations, Internal tooling, AI Engineering, RAG
- Vis: Cape Town diving visibility forecaster (repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/diving-visibility)
  Built Vis, a Cape Peninsula diving-visibility forecasting system that combines field reports, marine conditions, coastal geometry, and review workflows into a practical forecasting pipeline. It mines WhatsApp, social, and public dive observations, routes labels through a Streamlit reviewer, enriches them with Open-Meteo and Copernicus history, and trains physics-first ML and analog models. The system produces a water-filtered H3 shore-diving grid, +6h to +72h forecasts, MVT/GeoJSON artifacts, access and MPA masks, and product contracts for a future map experience.
  Stack: Software Development, Forecasting, AI Engineering, Operations, Internal tooling
- Plentify: Metabase & fleet analytics (live: https://www.metabase.com/; repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/metabase-plentify)
  Deployed and shaped a team-owned Metabase business-intelligence platform for Plentify fleet operations, then documented the operational databases well enough to make self-service analytics practical. The work included Follower and Precog data models, canonical joins, glossary terms, metric definitions, SQL quality checks, backup and extraction workflows, dashboard plans, communications rollups, and reliability-reporting pipelines. That documentation enabled safer natural-language SQL generation and reduced dependence on a costly bespoke analytics build: the result was a modifiable, owned, widely used BI capability that could evolve with the business.
  Stack: Operations, Internal tooling, Software Development, IoT, BI, SQL
- SIM Platform Integration: fleet connectivity intelligence
  Built a multi-provider SIM operations platform for Plentify fleet connectivity work. The system integrates 1oT, SIM Control, Hologram, and Telit data; normalizes ICCID, EID, and IMEI identifiers; exports Follower database snapshots; validates cross-source SIM assignments; detects stale or unassociated SIMs; and analyzes deployment distance, network operators, and hourly connectivity. It now includes a Flask workflow API, async job tracking, downloadable outputs, Google Sheets refresh support, a Flutter web interface, and a path from CSV analysis to scheduled monitoring.
  Stack: Software Development, Operations, Internal tooling, IoT, SQL, BI
- Edgecore Interface: AP/client monitoring
  Built an Edgecore ecCLOUD monitoring interface for Plentify fleet operations. The system polls managed access-point sites, records AP health and last-contact status, captures wireless client association snapshots, detects association, disassociation, and roaming events, and enriches MAC observations against fleet records. The first production workflow runs as a scheduled daily sync with review tabs for AP status, current associations, event history, poll audit, and registry data, establishing the data model for higher-frequency monitoring when needed.
  Stack: Software Development, Operations, Internal tooling, IoT, SQL
- 3BO Bicycle & Lastmile Telematics Tracking (live: https://www.3bo.mobi/; repo: https://github.com/3BO-Track)
  Product-managed 3BO, a WhatsApp-first bicycle and last-mile asset tracking platform built around rapid theft response. The product scope covered embedded Teltonika tracker configuration, GPS telemetry ingestion, AWS serverless processing, MongoDB device and ride state, WhatsApp alerts and commands, recovery-partner escalation, React/TypeScript customer and admin dashboards, Metabase analytics, onboarding, and FOTA operations. My role was product framing, roadmap and backlog management, workflow definition, stakeholder alignment, QA coordination, and launch readiness across hardware, backend, messaging, analytics, and recovery workstreams.
  Stack: IoT, Hardware, Operations, Software Development, Product Ownership, Project Management, Mechanical Engineering
- PDF Unlock: session-scoped PDF password removal API
  Built the backend foundation for a privacy-first PDF password removal service for users who already know their document passwords. The FastAPI service creates short-lived sessions, validates PDF uploads by size and file signature, tests user-provided password candidates with pikepdf, returns per-file success or failure, and serves unlocked PDFs from ephemeral storage. It is packaged for Cloud Run with IP and session rate limits, 30-minute cleanup, file and password caps, CORS controls, health checks, OpenAPI docs, Docker packaging, and integration tests using generated locked PDFs.
  Stack: Software Development, Internal tooling, Product Ownership
- ChatGPT Export: local knowledge-base migration pipeline (repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/chatgpt-export)
  Built a local ChatGPT export and knowledge-base migration pipeline that turns conversation history into structured, publishable reference material. The Python workflow discovers workspaces and projects, resumes interrupted exports, writes full conversation JSON atomically, routes conversations into personal and work knowledge trees, synthesizes domain articles with Gemini/Vertex AI, splits long outputs into Notion-ready sub-pages, and supports publishing to Notion or Outline through configured integrations. Raw exports, generated knowledge bases, settings, and secrets stay local unless a publishing target is explicitly configured.
  Stack: Software Development, Internal tooling, AI Engineering, RAG
- DriveStat: Google Drive storage treemap (repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/drive-file-size)
  Built DriveStat, a Google Drive storage analyzer that turns Drive metadata into a WinDirStat-style dashboard. The Google Apps Script and Sheets workflow scans My Drive or visible shared drives in resumable batches, writes raw file metadata to Sheets, aggregates folder totals and hierarchy views, and builds dashboards for top folders, top files, file types, depth summaries, and stacked folder charts. It also serves an HTML Google Charts treemap, while staying read-only against Drive content and accounting for quota behavior around Google-native files.
  Stack: Software Development, Internal tooling, Operations
- Plentify: Fleet Monitoring Product Ownership
  Led product ownership for Plentify's fleet monitoring workflow, moving daily hardware, sensor, connectivity, and heating checks from manual review toward automated detection, triage, and reporting. The work improved issue labeling, operator UX, metrics, detection logic, support handoffs, and feedback loops for data-science refinement. It helped the same team scale from monitoring roughly 2,500 units manually to more than 14,500 deployed devices across 80+ deployments, with automated daily rollups, clearer escalation workflows, better reporting, and a continuously improving labeled dataset.
  Stack: Software Development, IoT, Operations, Project Management, Product Ownership
- Notion-backed Personal Website (live: https://scholtz.dpdns.org; repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/personal-website)
  Built this Notion-backed personal website as a structured public portfolio rather than a hand-edited resume page. Notion is the content system for projects, experience, skills, and profile data; the Next.js site renders that content into a project-first interface with SEO metadata, Open Graph output, JSON profile data, llm.txt, sitemap and robots routes, PDF assets, and gated reveal flows for sensitive links. The current migration work moves the site from a VM-hosted Docker deployment toward Cloudflare Pages so the same public URLs can run with less operational fragility.
  Stack: Software Development, Internal tooling
- Plentify: Climbing Wall
  Designed and delivered a 9 m by 2.44 m self-supporting steel-frame climbing wall for the Plentify warehouse. The project moved from concept and budgeting through fabrication, route setting, safety controls, certification, and employee access governance. It was completed under budget, which left room to buy shared climbing shoes, and the operating model requires signed indemnities, belay certification, mandatory climbing shoes, controlled access, and yearly structural inspection. The outcome was a durable staff-wellness asset with the safety process needed to keep it usable.
  Stack: Health & Safety, Budgeting, DIY, Mechanical Engineering, Project Management
- Beach Ultimate Weather Dashboards (live: https://scholtzap.github.io/Clifton-Beach-Frisbee-Weather-Dashboard/; Praia da Rocha dashboard: https://scholtzap.github.io/Praia-da-Rocha-Beach-Ultimate-Weather-Dashboard/; repo: https://github.com/scholtzap/Clifton-Beach-Frisbee-Weather-Dashboard)
  Built a pair of location-specific Beach Ultimate weather dashboards for Clifton in Cape Town and Praia da Rocha in Portimao. The dashboards share one static GitHub Pages pattern with location configuration, automated data refreshes, generated HTML, weather and tide data, busyness signals, and lightweight charting for players deciding when conditions are worth a game. The project also solved the multi-repo maintenance problem: Clifton and Praia stay aligned through shared scripts, matching workflows, documented secrets, and a repeatable deployment process while keeping each public page location-specific.
  Stack: AI Engineering, Software Development
- F1 in Schools: Model F1 Car (live: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2406578; repo: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2406578)
  Completed a solo F1 in Schools model-car project before formal engineering training, using it to self-teach SolidWorks, CAD iteration, and first-principles aerodynamic tradeoffs. The design centered on a whale-tail-inspired rear aerofoil for stability while prioritizing low-drag airflow over downforce-heavy alternatives. The final car combined a CNC-machined balsa body, printed rear wing, and lightweight low-friction wheels, making the project an early practical exercise in design constraints, manufacturing, testing, and engineering judgement.
  Stack: Mechanical Engineering, DIY
- MEng Copper Infiltration Study
  Completed the Cum Laude MEng project "A study of copper infiltration for conventional ferrous powder metallurgy" at Stellenbosch University. The research commissioned and refurbished a pusher furnace, calibrated process-gas controls, studied delubrication behaviour, and compared furnace operating strategies for copper sinter-infiltration of ferrous powder-metallurgy samples. It combined furnace modification, thermal analysis, controlled atmosphere experiments, sectioning, polishing, SEM/EDS microscopy, defect diagnosis, and process-guideline development to explain black residue, copper pooling, copper balling, and infiltration reliability.
  Stack: Mechanical Engineering, Materials, Hardware, Project Management
- BEng FAST Apparatus Refinement
  Built and validated the final-year BEng project "Refinement of a FAST (Field Assisted Sintering Technique) Apparatus" at Stellenbosch University. The work assessed an existing low-power sintering rig, redesigned the force actuation system, repaired sealing and electrical paths, commissioned new graphite punches, and used FEM plus COMSOL multiphysics modelling to understand stress, resistance, and temperature limits. The apparatus successfully sintered a cobalt sample, supported microscopy and density analysis, and showed that FAST research could be performed with a smaller, lower-cost power supply than commercial systems.
  Stack: Mechanical Engineering, Materials, Hardware, Project Management

Source & Freshness
==================
Provenance:
- Profile and metadata values from environment configuration.
- Projects, roles, education, and professional experience from Notion-backed databases.
Last updated: 2026-06-08T16:55:21.763Z