Sven Hansen joined NetApp in March 2015 and holds the position of Senior Systems Engineering Manager for the African region.

He works closely with customers, sales and partner channel teams to define and implement the strategy and technology vision across this region. His role covers the identification of customer business challenges and the provision of solution strategies to solve these concerns, utilizing a broad set of technologies – including storage solutions, data management, security principles and networking offerings.

Sven has over 18 years of experience in the IT industry and has worked for some of the most influential Fortune 500 companies around the globe. Prior to joining NetApp, Sven held the role of System Engineering Manager for Middle East and Africa for Ruckus Wireless as well as the position of Senior Technical Manager at Symantec. His field of responsibility included leading the sales and professional services organization to grow market share and develop service and support capability across East & West Africa

Sven Hansen has also held senior positions at both Cisco and Ericsson which included the development and implementation of strategic channel plans and initiatives.

Andrew John Brauer has extensive local and international ICT experience and is involved in researching and introducing new technologies to create business value. His strengths include networking telecommunications, system management, software development and service-orientated architecture, Internet of Things and developing cloud computing models.

More recently he has been working on Advanced Predictive Algorithms and Sensors. Brauer has worked on most of the technologies in the ICT arena. These include: electronics, telecommunication, software development, system and network management, system integration, strategy, operations, management and business development. He has an interest in Clean Energy and has been working on a prototype. The leadership roles which he has held over the years include technical director, chief information officer and executive director.

His current role is CTO for Business Connexion the position being internally  and externally focused. He is on the Research and Advisory panel of the Mereka Institute at the Council for Industrial and Science Research in South Africa as well as an advisory to Enterprise Ireland.

Vernon Thaver plays an integral role in Cisco’s strategic direction and development. He is responsible for aligning the company’s global technology, business and channel partner resources and capabilities in ways that deliver exponential business growth.

Vernon manages the communication of Cisco’s technology vision and strategy in products, solutions, services and architectures and provides contextual assessment on technology’s strategic future impact in various market segments.

He joined Cisco in 2005 with several years’ experience as a senior network engineer in diverse technical roles with leading ICT companies in South Africa.

During his tenure in systems engineering, Vernon lead the company’s engagements in smart and connected communities (S+CC) in key public sector organisations and has been responsible for the design of several strategic government IP NGNs in South Africa, while holding a specialisation in convergent core optical transport and high-end core routing.

As an architect in the company’s elite large opportunity pursuit team, he provided consultancy on business and technical architectures and network design and orchestrated several large, complex and transformational projects.

His architectural expertise and interests include high capacity core IP networks, SDN and nFV, next generation data centres, including application centric infrastructure (ACI), cloud computing, the Internet of Everything (IoE) and enterprise architecture (EA).

Vernon earned his degree in electronic engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and is CCIE#15661 certified in routing and switching.

Vernon is an enthusiastic father of two and a student of leadership and eschatology. He enjoys playing cricket in his spare time.

Nigel is a Chief Technologist and Strategist within HP’s EMEA Enterprise Group responsible for developing and defining future IT strategy for customers and HP. He works across HP’s largest and most complex customers across the EMEA region, as a leader in all aspects of new and emerging technologies to meet client IT objectives and business outcomes.

He also leads a team of Strategists across the region, who are developing client strategies with respect to the New Style of IT which includes Cloud, Software Defined Infrastructure, Big Data Analytics and Mobility.

Nigel’s strength in Architecture and Innovation is particularly important for customers, along with a strong understanding of IT service management and the change in culture required for IT organisations, to adopt the big changes in the IT industry and to succeed in enabling business value.

He acts as a customer advocate internally within HP to ensure client requirements are fully understood by Research and Development teams, thus ensuring HP is well placed to meet industry and client future needs. Nigel is a spokesperson for HP’s own internal IT transformation and has worked with clients translating the principals of HP’s completed transformation to their own.

In previous roles Nigel has led a number of global IT transformation projects and has been a solution leader in some of HP’s biggest projects.

He has over 25-years’ experience working in the IT industry and has specific industry experience in the Energy Sector and general experience in Finance and Telecommunications.

Prior to joining HP, he held a diverse range of senior roles working with customers in all aspects of IT.

He lives in London and holds a degree in System Design and Internet Technology and is a member of The British Computer Society.

Fredell is currently the GM for Enterprise Development at The Innovation Hub. He is passionate about entrepreneurship capacity development which is grounded in entrepreneurship ecosystem methodology. Prior to joining The Innovation Hub he served as the founding CEO of the South African Startup Index (SASi), a company which designed monitoring and evaluation tools for entrepreneurship capacity development in support of investment visibility.

Tony joined Telkom Business in January 2014 as Managing Executive: Solutions Business with focus on digitalisation and taking new innovative Enterprise ICT solutions to market

Prior to joining Telkom, Tony was Executive: Product and Marketing at Gijima where he was responsible for the transformation of Product Sales, Sales Operations, and Marketing organizations, and executing go-to-market strategies for new enterprise business offerings in particular, Mobility and Cloud Computing. Tony built and lead the team that delivered Africa’s 1^st Mobile IT platform – built by Africans for Africa.

Tony De Sousa is South African and spent 18 years abroad in Europe and US where he held VP Sales roles at a number of multinational ICT companies. Last 12 years spent with software start ups taking disruptive technologies to market.

Carl is the founder and Managing Director of Merlynn Intelligence Technologies – a company on the forefront of human to machine knowledge transmission using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques.   Carl is considered as one of the pioneers in building Artificial Intelligence technologies that enable machines to learn from the top experts.

Carl is working with Dr. Alan Barnard, CEO of Goldratt Research Labs, on a number of projects where Theory of Constraints is being applied in conjunction with AI and Predictive Analytics.

Carl was one of the 2015 winners of the South Africa’s Technology Top 100 Awards – for the development and commercial application of TOM – a technology that can clone any expert making subjective decisions based on intuition and experience

Carl is married with 5 children currently living in Irene, Centurion, South Africa

With a background education in Business Administration (MBA) and Law, Ramsés is a +15 year security professional with deep expertise in the Risk Management and Governance areas. Ramsés is now Security Strategist & Evangelist for Dell Software, where he defines the vision of the security discipline and evangelizes on its mission and strategy.

Before, he was at CA Technologies for 8 years, was Regional Manager for SurfControl in Spain and Portugal, and also Chief Strategy Officer of the Security and Risk Management practice at Entelgy. Ramsés has served for three years in ISACA’s CISM and CGEIT Certification Committees and also in the Guidance & Practices Committee for three years from where deliverables have been created for the community. He is honored to have been the Chair for ISACA’s ISRM Conference and part of the Program Committee for the events SecureCloud 2010 and 2012.

He is now President at the Barcelona Chapter and played an instrumental role in the Planning Committee that prepared first-ever ISACA’s World Congress in Washington, June 2011. He has also been part of the ISACA’s CISM PATF Task Force. Ramsés believes that a revolution (rather than an evolution) is needed when considering the move from technology to enterprise risk and that the cloud dimension offers incredible opportunities for businesses today.

Ramsés thinks that Governance is essential to facilitate innovation in this changing business environment and holds many certifications that combine different knowledge areas and broaden his vision on technology within the marketplace. Ramsés is a CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), CGEIT (Certified in the Governance of the Enterprise IT) and a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional). He is the proud owner of the SCPM (Stanford Certified Project Manager) from Stanford University, California, one of the first experts with the CCSK (Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge) and also an ITIL and COBIT Foundations certified professional. He develops results-oriented, business-focused, people-driven projects due to his Six Sigma Black Belt accreditation.

An internationally recognized public speaker, has visited +24 different countries in the past 12 months and has been awarded ‘Best Speaker’ many times. He received the John Kuyers Award for Best Speaker/Conference Contributor in June 2013. He has been named ‘Privacy by Design Ambassador’ by the Government of Ontario, Canada and is proud of being Immediate International VP for ISACA’s Board of Directors, with a seat and a vote for the past three years. He lives in Barcelona, Spain, with his wonderful wife and his two loved kids.

Dominic is the CTO at SensePost, a 15-year-old South African information security consultancy, specialising in penetration testing. He was previously a manager within the Security & Privacy Services division of Deloitte and holds an MSc from Rhodes University in the topic of computer security.

He is actively involved in the South African security research community, and is a founder of South Africa’s only hacker conference, ZaCon. He has also served on the technical advisory board for South Africa’s largest information security conference, the Security Summit, for the last 4 years.

He engages in his own research, and has previously published research at numerous conferences, both locally and internationally.

He regularly trains others in offensive and defensive security skills internationally, most notably at the prestigious Black Hat Briefings in Las Vegas.

He can be found tweeting as @singe, or at the SensePost blog http://www.sensepost.com/blog

Kent Eriksson is a Fellow IoT Business Consultant in PTC’s Global Services organization with responsibility for helping PTC customers and partners identify and evaluate new IoT-related business opportunities, develop IoT program roadmaps, and optimize business processes with IoT-related systems and tools.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Eriksson worked at McKinsey’s Operations Practice from 2007 to 2015, as an expert in product development. He also worked at PTC from 1999 to 2007 as a solution architect and PMI-certified project manager implementing PLM.

Mr. Eriksson holds a M.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Chalmers University of Technology with a thesis on predictions with neural networks and a B.Sc. Business Administration from School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg.

McLean Sibanda is an engineer and patent attorney. He is the Chief Executive Officer of The Innovation Hub South Africa and President of the African Division of International Association of Science Parks (IASP).  He has extensive experience in intellectual property, entrepreneurship and innovation. He has held senior and executive roles in a number of private and public sector organisations in South Africa.  He has served as an Expert to the African Union (AU), World Intellectual Property Organisation, and the Department of Science and Technology on drafting of intellectual property legislation as well as review of Tanzania National System of Innovation.

An immediate past board member of the CSIR, past acting executive director of the Innovation Fund (2008-2010) and Technology Innovation Agency Group Executive for Commercialisation until 2011; he currently serves on the boards of the National Intellectual Property Management Office (NIPMO), IASP, Technifin and African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

As Talk Radio 702’s award winning trafficologist, Aki has endeared himself to generations of Joburgers by guiding them through the city’s gridlocked streets each morning. Aki’s other great passion is technology and he presents technology and gadget driven features on Redi Tlhabi and Sam Cowans’ shows on 702.  Aki also co-hosts a weekly television show on CNBC Africa called “Tech Busters” with Stuff Magazine’s editor Toby Shapshak. He also features on the youth tech show “Technorati” on SABC 3 on Saturday mornings as well as doing a regular technology feature on DeafTV.

He also writes for various publications which include Acumen, Diversions and The Margin.

Ross Atkin is a London based researcher, designer and engineer. He has worked on technological development in industry at major UK manufacturers like Dyson and on academic research at the Royal College of Art. He maintains a design and development practice concentrating on the interfaces between disability, technology and the city, working for world-leading manufacturers like Stannah and Marshalls, major disability charities like Scope and municipal authorities.

Ross has been working with pervasive computing since 2007 and actively developing Internet of Things products since 2011. He has spoken about the Internet of Things at leading technology conferences including South By Southwest and O’Reily Solid. He is currently working on a series of connected products in the smart city and assisted living spaces including Responsive Street Furniture which has been nominated for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year award 2015.

Stephen van Coller is the CE of Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) – Barclays Africa Group. Barclays Africa Group Limited has a diversified portfolio of businesses across 14 African countries with assets of approximately USD 91.2 million and currently has more than 41 000 permanent employees. Barclays Africa CIB employs about 3000 people across Africa and has turnover of around USD 1,2 billion.

Stephen joined the Barclays group in 2006.

Stephen is a member of the Barclays Africa Group Limited Executive Committee and chairs the Citizenship and Innovation committees across Africa. Stephen is a member of the Barclays Plc Global Investment Committee, the Barclays Social Innovation Fund, Africa Investment Board and is a Trustee of The Absa Foundation Trust.

Stephen is also a member of the WEF Global Agenda Council and sits on the Values Council as well as the Financial Inclusion SteerCo.

Before joining Barclays, Stephen was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank in Johannesburg for 10 years. His last role was Head of Corporate Coverage and Advisory. He was a member of the Executive Committee, a member of the Transformation Committee, and was also a trustee of Deutsche Bank’s social trust – which oversees the firm’s corporate social responsibility spending in the country.

Stephen’s qualifications include a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree from the University of Stellenbosch and a Higher Diploma in Accounting from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

He is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) and the United Kingdom Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

Emma Sadleir’s areas of expertise include all aspects of print and electronic media law, with a particular focus on defamation, privacy and social media law. She is an admitted attorney and has a BA LLB (with distinction) from the University of Witwatersrand and an LLM in Information Technology, Media and Communications Law (with distinction) from the London School of Economics, having been awarded a scholarship from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. She worked in the media litigation department of Webber Wentzel for five years before going on her own to specialise in social media law in April 2013. Much of her work involves creating social media strategies and policies for corporates and schools, drafting social media agency agreements and providing training and workshops on social media law. She also teaches media law to journalists and lawyers and lectures personal reputation management on various MBA programmes.

Emma was an anchor for The Oscar Pistorius Trial: A Carte Blanche Channel where, for the duration of the evidence in the trial, she hosted a programme discussing social media, the law and court proceedings. Emma was retained as a legal commentator for the BBC (both radio and television) for closing argument, verdict and sentencing of the Oscar Pistorius trial.

Emma has been selected to speak at SXSW in March 2015 and has a regular weekly slot on DJ Fresh’s show on 5FM answering people’s questions on social media legal issues.

Emma is the co-author of “Don’t Film Yourself Having Sex… And Other Legal Advice For The Age of Social Media”, published by Penguin Random House in September 2014. The book was described by Professor Jonathan Jansen as “the most important textbook” a university student will buy. Emma is also the co-author of the social media section of the legal textbook, “Communications Law”, published by Lexis Nexus in January 2015.

Jason is a professional forensic scientist (digital and multimedia evidence) and a specialist in the prevention and investigation of cyber crime. He is the founder and Principal Forensic Scientist at DFIRLABS, an independent digital forensics laboratory. He was previously the Head of the Cyber Forensic Laboratory of the Special Investigating Unit. He has been a practicing forensic investigation professional since 1991, and has specialised in the field of digital forensics science and cyber crime investigation since 1998. He has testified on several occasions in the South African High Court as an expert witness.

Jason has a Masters degree in Computer Science Cum Laude, Masters degree in Forensic Investigation; an Honours degree in Information Systems, majoring in computer forensics; a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice Computer Science Summa Cum Laude, majoring in computer forensics and information security; and a Bachelors degree in Policing, majoring in investigation. He has also received extensive training from the Federal Bureau of Investigations in the United States in the fields of computer crime investigation, advanced economic crime investigation, and public corruption investigations. He is a Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, a Certified Fraud Examiner, a GIAC Certified Forensic Examiner, a Professional Member of the Institute of Information Technology of South Africa, a Professional Member of the Chartered Society of Forensic Science, and an AccessData Certified Examiner.

He is an active academic, researcher, trainer and mentor in the international digital forensics community. He has taught digital forensics at the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria, and Rhodes University. He is a community instructor for the SANS Institute digital forensics curriculum for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He has trained police officers and prosecutors throughout East Africa in digital forensics and cybercrime investigation. He has also mentored digital forensic practitioners from Europe, the Middle East, and Pacific Rim as an IACIS mentor.

His digital forensics research has been published in several international peer reviewed scientific journals. He is also a co-­‐author of “The Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CCFP CBK” an international textbook about digital forensics practice, and wrote the chapters on Fundamental Principles of Forensic Science, Forensic Science Processes, Quality Assurance in Forensic Science, and Multimedia Forensics. He is also a co-­‐author of the book “Forensic Investigation: Scientific Practices and Legislative Principles”, and wrote the chapters on Digital Forensics, and Testifying in Court.

Enrico Jacobs is co-founder and Vice-Chancellor of Belgium Campus. Belgium Campus, established in 1999, is the preeminent IT University in South Africa which delivers an estimated 8% of all graduates in Information Technology. He engineered the Participative Model of Learning — a unique and internationally recognised model providing a deontological education in a nurturing environment, directly driving regional development. This agile model takes cognisance of all stakeholders’ needs, resulting in demand driven, student centred, and business focused programmes of higher learning. This model earned Belgium Campus recognition by many globe spanning businesses, organisations, universities and government, and resulted in different collaboration agreements, student bursaries (65% of students on bursaries), and graduate programmes.

Enrico Jacobs strongly believes that appropriate skills, combined with the effective exploitation of ICT, are key to developing businesses, local and global markets, and their communities. Research and innovation must directly impact positively on society, whilst forging equitable partnerships between businesses, the public sector, and academia. Globalisation, the potential of technology and access to data open new avenues for business development and regional development. This paves the way for skill-driven economic transformation and social change in South Africa and beyond.

To reify his beliefs, Enrico is establishing an Innovation and Incubation Village, a non-profit research and valorisation centre which offers an enabling, supportive, and protective environment to incubate and accelerate innovative (technology) solutions for enterprises and the public sector, based on the Collaborative Innovation Model for Regional Development. Innovative technology solutions are seamlessly integrated in a particular value chain meeting individual stakeholders’ requirements. Agreements have been reached with the DST, DTI, KULeuven University, and BTC. Showcase projects already initiated include smart city, renewable energy, educational and health management projects.

Jessica Knight is the Senior Executive responsible for the Business Solutions division of UCS Solutions, part of the Business Connexion Group. Prior to her current role she was instrumental in launching ‘inthebag.co.za’ in 2000, the online shopping business which evolved into the current Woolworths online channel. She was previously a partner at McKinsey Inc, in London and Johannesburg, and was a leader in the retail, consumer and ecommerce practices.

She is also a non-executive director of Appletiser and a Trustee of the Women’s Private Equity Fund.

Dion Chang is an innovator, creative thinker and walking ideas bank. He is one of South Africa’s most respected trend analysts and takes the unique view of “trends as business strategy”. While his feet remain firmly planted on African soil, he uses a global perspective to gauge the zeitgeist, source ahead-of-the-curve concepts and identify shifting business templates. In a world struggling to adapt to a new world order, his trends analysis company – Flux Trends – specializes in understanding consumer mindset and identifying unexpected business opportunities within shifting trends, ensuring that global trends have relevance when translated for South African businesses.

He has 20 years experience in the magazine industry and as a journalist and media spokesman, which enables him to provide insights into the ever-changing relationship between brands, consumers and the communication channels that bind them.

He has devised and hosted 3 trend conferences and published 3 trend books (the last being, “New Urban Tribes of South Africa”). Flux Trends currently releases industry specific trend reports every quarter. Apart from being an information source on a cross section of trends for many journalists, he currently writes columns for City Press, SAA’s Sawubona magazine, Acumen (a C-suite business quarterly for GIBS) and has a monthly radio slot on MetroFM, as well as a bi-weekly online radio slot with eBizRadio.

He is passionate about youth trends and subcultures, their impact and influence on an emerging new world order, as well as innovative ideas for greater good.

Arthur Goldstuck heads the World Wide Worx research organisation, leading groundbreaking market research into how change is affecting business and society, and presents his findings and insights to audiences across the globe. World Wide Worx produces the most widely accepted statistics for Internet use in South Africa, and has conducted research across Africa since 2001. Goldstuck has served as principal analyst on research projects covering Internet, mobile and business technology use.

He is also an award-winning writer, analyst and technology commentator. He provides commentary on technology and communications issues to both local and international media. In 2013, the Institute of IT Professionals of South Africa named him as recipient of the coveted Distinguished Service in ICT Award, and made him an Honorary Fellow of the Institute.

As a journalist, Goldstuck was news editor of the Weekly Mail (now the Mail & Guardian), South African correspondent for Billboard, and a freelance feature writer for the Times of London, among other. He publishes the online consumer technology magazine Gadget.co.za, and is author of 19 books. His weekly gadgets column is the most widely syndicated technology column in South Africa. He also writes a weekly technology trends column for Business Times in the Sunday Times, South Africa’s largest-circulation newspaper.

In 2014, the Minister of Communications appointed Goldstuck to South Africa’s National Broadband Advisory Council, and he was an international judge in both the 2010 and 2015 GSMA Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona. He has been a judge in the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards since 2011.

Anton is a Senior Partner in FutureWorld International, having joined the global FutureWorld network in 1991.

A futurist, business strategist, public speaker, businessman and entrepreneur, Anton engages with clients across industries and around the world. He has gained step-change business experience in a varied and successful professional, entrepreneurial and business career. Anton delivers insightful value to global clients, across many industries and market sectors. Most recently he served as Managing Director of core divisions of Citadel Private Client Wealth Management. He has also served as Managing Partner of a large legal practice and Managing Director of a major property management business. He has served as President of a national property owners association, representing property interests worth $60 billion. Anton currently also serves as advisor to several businesses and families, and serves on the Board of Governors of an educational institution.

Anton passionately advises businesses on strategic thinking and future innovative growth imperatives to drive sustainable growth and long term relevance in a changing world. He has an insightful understanding of a wide range of industries, from services, the professions, property, law, financial services, resources, FMCG, logistics and energy.

Anton is an inspiring, spirited communicator and an acclaimed speaker and facilitator at corporate events and strategic initiatives. He has lectured at the University of Cape Town Business School and The Gordon Institute of Business Science. He lectures regularly for WITS Business School, Duke CE of the USA, Oxford University Business School, London Business School and the India School of Business in Hyderabad.

Clem Sunter was born in Suffolk, England on 8th August 1944 and was educated at Winchester College. He went to Oxford where he read Politics, Philosophy and Economics before joining Charter Consolidated as a management trainee in 1966.

In 1971, he moved to Lusaka in Zambia to work for Anglo American Corporation Central Africa. From there he was transferred in 1973 to the Head Office of Anglo American Corporation of South Africa in Johannesburg. He spent most of his subsequent career in the Gold and Uranium Division, serving as its Chairman and CEO from 1990 t 1996. At the time it was the largest gold producer in the world. He was until recently Chairman of the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund, which in a recent survey was rated the premier corporate social responsibility fund in South Africa.

In the early 1980s, he established a scenario planning function in Anglo with teams in London and Johannesburg. Two members were Pierre Wack and Ted Newland who previously headed up the scenario planning department at Royal Dutch Shell and then acted as consultants to Anglo for over a decade (after their retirement from Shell). Using material from these teams, Mr. Sunter put together a presentation entitled ‘The World and South Africa in the 1990s’ which became very popular in South Africa in the mid-1980s. In it, two scenarios were offered for South Africa: the ‘High Road’ of negotiation leading to a political settlement and the ‘Low Road’ of confrontation leading to a civil war and a wasteland. South Africa took the High Road. Two highlights for Clem were a presentation to FW de Klerk and the Cabinet in 1986 and a visit to Nelson Mandela in prison to discuss the future just before his release.

Since 1987, he has authored 17 books some of which have been bestsellers. His other main interests are seeking to mobilise the private sector in the war against HIV/AIDS and create a new generation of entrepreneurs in South Africa.

Siya is one of the new young generation of Africans who are committed to developing the continent’s potential through disruptive innovations.


A born innovator from Mthatha, Eastern Cape, Siya began a project on a rocket fuel that led to an invitation to the 2006 Nobel Prize Ceremonies in Sweden and that was awarded a first place at the 2007 Intel Science and Engineering Fair- the world’s largest youth innovation fair. In 2008, MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory named a minor planet “Siyaxuza”, found near the Jupiter asteroid belt, in his honor.

Siya has garnered numerous other accolades, including a fellowship in 2010 of the African Leadership Network and is the youngest member of the Africa 2.0 energy advisory panel.

As a recent graduate of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he pioneered micro-fuel cells for mobile energy: distributed energy that could be used to power remote and rural areas, Siya has returned to South Africa as an entrepreneur with a passion for developing solutions for the energy industry.

Of Ghanaian/German heritage and raised in Lesotho, Kojo is an African. He has a Bachelor of Commerce (with majors in Economics, Marketing and Business Administration).

Naturally curious, Kojo uses his life and work experiences as lessons to do better and be better. He believes that for the collective to progress, it is important that we each share whatever knowledge and wisdom we have garnered. He is comfortable exploring a wide range of topics, using the lessons to create greater understanding across multiple industries. Kojo believes “We need to be fully engaged in the human experience. We need to draw from everything at our disposal to ensure that our little patch of this earth is better for us having been in it”.


Kojo has facilitated, hosted and been programme director for various events, conferences, workshops and seminars. He speaks on different topics and customizes his keynotes and talks each according to the audience and brief. He can also develop custom talks for specific occasions, delving into innovation, technology, lifestyle, marketing and branding, amongst others.

“Creatively inspiring”, is Craig’s motto – a motto that has sustained him through marathons of the body and mind. In addition to having completed over 40 marathons and 10 completed over 40 marathons and 10 Comrades marathons, Craig also has a PhD in educational technology. His passion is innovative teaching and learning and he has been involved in the implementation and research of innovative pedagogies for over 20 years.

His PhD, on the use of Facebook for learning, and his current research, is exploring the future directions of new digital pedagogies

Mr Barlow Manilal has recently joined Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) as the new Chief Executive Officer. He holds a BSc Hons. degree in Industrial Technology & Management, several other management qualifications. His 30-page Curriculum Vitae consists of the kinds of achievements and awards that society could only be inspired and motivated by.

Mr Manilal has gained excellent knowledge of project engineering and manufacturing in the automotive OEM environment at Toyota SA and Mercedes Benz SA. Whilst at Mercedes Benz SA, he was part of the W203 programme planning team, which integrated the SA plant into the DaimlerChrysler global planning network.

32 Years in the ICT industry with 27 years of practical GIS/LBS experience. Comprehensive experience in the use of spatial solutions within the telecoms, defence and all spheres of private/government environments amongst others. Specialise in identifying new applied fields for spatial applications in an organisation and defining the optimal use of GIS/LBS in correlation with other technologies within an organisation.

My focus in the last couple of years was to create new business opportunities and to create/manage partner channels with ICT companies providing complimentary technologies that can be integrated with GIS/LBS to provide a more comprehensive solution (e.g. business intelligence, electronic document management, automated workflow, airborne surveillance, location based marketing etc.).

Paul Maritz is currently Chairman of Pivotal Software, a new private company created to enable enterprises with the new product development and open platform capabilities needed for Digital Transformation and the Internet of Things. Pivotal is owned by EMC, VMware and General Electric.

Paul was born in 1955 in Zimbabwe and educated in South Africa, where he graduated in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Universities of Natal and Cape Town. He started his working career in the United Kingdom at Burroughs and the University of St. Andrews, and in 1981 he moved to the USA to work at Intel Corporation. In 1986 he joined Microsoft, where he managed the development of many of Microsoft’s core products, including Windows, Exchange, SQL Server and Development Tools, and served as a member of the Executive Team that managed the company. In 2000 he retired from Microsoft, and in 2003 founded a company called PI that was acquired by EMC in 2008. In 2008 Paul joined VMware where he served as CEO until 2012, when he moved to help start Pivotal.

In the non-profit space, Paul served for 10 years on the Board of the Grameen Foundation which supports the development and spread of microfinance and related technologies around the world. He currently supports and serves as on the Board of Mifos, which develops open source software for financial inclusion. He also has an active interest in supporting education and wildlife conservation in Africa.