After setting up a full node c. mid December 2017 and receiving some votes (but not enough to be voted in) I have decided to revisit the project, not least because of some positive encouragement by certain respectable members.
I aim to provide low-latency access to South Africa which will hopefully be accessible as such to other southern countries and perhaps beyond (overland internet access is sometimes more limited than international backbones).
The witnesses need to be updated to the latest releases as of yet, and price feeds refined. My Witness proposal can be accessed at http://www.viralmike.com/etienne-marais.php
It has to be noted that I intend to contribute to software development, notably a windows client fork or perhaps a clean start incorporating existing code with a slightly different approach to accommodate a certain level of user as well as other aspects where I could contribute, but that my time budget will be limited to max 2 working days after hours and weekends.
If you feel like it, vote for witness: etienne-marais or keep an eye on my proposal until you feel convinced.
To vote: open the menu at the top right in the Bitshares client, click on Voting and click on the hyphen on the right side for etienne-marais , it will turn to a check-mark after which you still have to click on save at the top right.