People of Note | Living Community

People of Note page introduction

Before there were nations, there was one continent.

Before there were borders, there were people. Moving. Thinking. Building. Creating meaning from the raw material of existence. Learning what it means to be human in the fullest sense of that word.
Science confirms what the ancients already knew. Every human being alive today—regardless of where they were born, what language they speak, or what road they have travelled—traces their origin to one place.
Alkebulan. The ancient name for Africa. The mother of humankind. The garden where the human story began.
That story has never stopped. It has only spread across oceans, across centuries, and across every culture and civilisation that has followed. But the root remains. And the root is here.
QIBP Publishing is rooted here too. In southern Africa. In the dust and light and difficulty and beauty of this continent. And from that rootedness it looks outward—to readers in 54 countries and beyond and to thinkers and creators and travellers across the world who recognise something in this work that speaks to them.

The People of Note are part of that story — “They are not celebrities, not curated for appearance or influence.”

They are people whose lives demonstrate something worth paying attention to. People who move through the world with intention. Who create, contribute, think independently, and live with a commitment to something beyond themselves?
Some are from here. Some are far from here. All are, in the oldest possible sense, from the same place.
This page is a living record. It will grow as the QIBP community grows with new voices introduced. As The Light Series finds its readers and its collaborators across the world.
Every person featured here carries their own story. Their own copyright. Their own journey.
We simply recognise it.

Deepak Kamath

World Motorcyclist · Adventurer · Speaker · Record Holder, Bangalore, India

There are people who talk about the road and people who live it.

Deepak Kamath and I share something that needs no explanation between us — the particular understanding that comes from a life spent on two wheels. The road as a teacher. The road as discipline. The road is the most honest mirror a person can hold up to themselves.

What Deepak has done on that road is extraordinary by any measure.

He has covered more than 600,000 kilometers since the age of 18. In 1994, he and his riding partner G.H. Basavaraj rode a 250cc Yezdi Roadking—an Indian-built machine—around the world across six continents in 47 riding days. No GPS. No safety net. A record that entered the books and has never quite left the imagination of anyone who hears it.

What followed was not rest. It was more of a road. The Trans-Siberian Odyssey through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia and the Road of Bones in Russia. The Dominar Polar Odyssey — 51,000 kilometers from the Arctic Circle to Ushuaia across two American continents in 99 days. And then Antarctica — crossing the Drake Passage by boat, losing 11 kilograms to seasickness, and riding his motorcycle on the seventh continent. The only Indian and the only Asian ever to have done so.

He has also ridden through Alkebulan — through South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola — heading north toward Norway. He has felt this continent under his wheels. That matters to QIBP Publishing. That makes him family in the deepest sense of the road.

Deepak’s philosophy is simple and honest: “I travel because I’d rather look back at my life saying ‘I can’t believe I did that’ instead of ‘if only I had.'” That is not a record-chaser’s philosophy. That is the philosophy of a man who understands that a life unlived is the only real loss.

He is a motivational speaker, a writer, and someone who has spent decades showing people — especially young people — that the edge of the comfort zone is exactly where the real journey begins.

He is a “Person of Note” because the road chose him as much as he chose it. And because the world he has seen from the seat of a motorcycle is a world very few human beings will ever know.

I am proud to call him a friend.

Follow Deepak’s journey:

Declan McEvoy

Solo Round-the-World Motorcyclist · Guinness World Record Participant · Technical Trainer · Motivational Speaker Quin, County Clare, Ireland

Declan describes himself without pretension: he loves people, travel, and motorcycles. All three, when possible, at once. Some roads find you when you are ready for them. Some find you before you think you are. He is here because he is that too. And more.

Declan McEvoy was 45 years old when a colleague died at his desk on an ordinary morning. He was 50. Five years between them. Declan had not ridden a motorcycle in over twenty years. Within a short time, the bike was back. Not as recreation. As a reckoning.

What followed was one of the more remarkable journeys any person has undertaken on two wheels. A solo round-the-world odyssey on a 20-year-old motorcycle named Agnieszka. Five continents. 59 countries. More than 92,500 kilometres. Two of the earth’s antipodal points. A crossing of Lake Baikal — the largest lake on the planet by volume — in Russian winter, a Guinness World Record attempt that was later filmed for Irish television as One Mile Down: Siberian Scramble.

Africa was part of that journey. South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Zambia — the roads of Alkebulan were under his wheels. The same ancient continent that roots everything QIBP Publishing stands for. Declan said of the QIBP website: “Philosophical and intellectual, like its owner.”

By trade, Declan McEvoy is an electro-mechanical engineer and technical trainer with 37 years of hands-on experience across Ireland, Australia, and California. He has spent 27 years teaching engineers how systems work — how things fail, how they are fixed, and how that knowledge is passed forward to the next person. instructor and advanced rider. A man who thinks in systems. Who teaches others to do the same. Anyone who has spent time in a workshop or on a long road will understand immediately why that matters. He is also an RSA-approved motorcycling

There is something else worth knowing about Declan McEvoy. He and fellow People of Note contributor Deepak Kamath, a world motorcyclist and record holder, know each other. They met on a mountaintop road in Tajikistan many moons ago, two riders from opposite ends of the world crossing paths in the middle of it. That meeting, on a road most people will never see, is the kind of thing that only happens to people who choose the road as their way of living rather than a way of passing time. This is not a curated collaboration. This is a genuine community with a shared history. This is common in the world of motorcycling. A kindled spirit that finds each other. The road that teaches and forms lifelong bonds. A brotherhood that envelopes people.

There is a phrase in Southern Africa, “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”.

A letter from Declan.

Hi Raymond,

I met Deepak Kamath in the most unusual of circumstances, crossing a mountaintop in Tajikistan. I was riding my motorcycle to Dushanbe, minding my own business, when in front of me I noticed three motorcycles all decked out the very same and pulled in on the side of the road with three guys all decked out the same, standing looking at the scenery. It immediately became apparent that they were a crew riding together. When they lifted their helmets off, three faces stood looking back at me. In talking, it became apparent that Deepak Kamath was the group leader. We instantly made a strong connection as motorcyclists on the road, and we planned to meet later when we arrived in Dushanbe. In fact, some time after that we rode a section of the Pamir Highway together. Ultimately, I, who was moving slightly faster with my agenda, moved on, but we stayed connected. We had so much in common, from journeys that had been made to journeys that we had individually planned. We have travelled across very much the same parts of the planet, albeit separately, sometimes where I have done it first and fed back information and contacts back to Deepak; indeed, one being a case in point in our mutual friend Raymond Luke in South Africa. Yet at other times when Deepak has done it first, he is feeding information and contacts back to me. It’s reciprocal support, and we value the integrity that each other has to be assured that the referred contact will be treated with decency. It’s somewhat ironic that as a result of our meeting in such fickle circumstances, later my wife Jacinta and I would spend time in Deepak’s home in Bangalore in India, and equally, Deepak and his wife Anitha would spend time in our home in Ireland. To me this encapsulates the spirit not necessarily of motorcycling, although motorcycling is indeed the conjugate, but the very spirit of life itself to share the joy of life with a total stranger who then becomes your good friend. I feel blessed for the wonderful friendships my journeys have brought me.

I am proud to call Declan a friend.

Follow Declan’s journey:

“May your journey illuminate your nature and consistencies.”

Raymond Peter Luke

QIBP Publishing · South Africa · www.qibp.co.za