Josh Spear, Herman Chinery-Hesse to keynote Tech4Africa 2011
The two-day conference plans to bring international experience and perspectives to the African continent, while at the same time showcasing what Africans are doing with mobile, web, digital media and other emerging technologies.
"2010 saw the launch of Tech4Africa and we were met with overwhelming support from both the tech and business communities and our foundation partners, First National Bank and Internet Solutions," says Gareth Knight, MD of Tech4Africa.
"This year we're delivering the same high standard of content and looking forward to bringing technologists together to look at what's current now, with an emphasis on social media and how it's relevant to digital marketing, mobile convergence, the growing cloud and the applications of BigData. We're also focusing on great African technologists that really are leading the way."
Keynote speakers include Josh Spear, one of the youngest and most respected digital marketing strategists in the world, and Herman Chinery-Hesse, commonly known as 'The Bill Gates of Africa'.
Fresh perspective from Spear
Spear is a trend spotter, blogger and brand strategist, sought out for his fresh perspective and no-holds-barred style of consulting on everything from design and gadgets to authenticity and word-of-mouth. His recent focus has been the power of the blogosphere, technology, and the impact of digital media on the world. In addition to his internationally recognised trend-spotting blog, he is a founding partner of Undercurrent, a digital think-tank focused on exploring new ways to reach young people without interrupting them.
With Africa rapidly leapfrogging the web and PC experience with a mobile one, the insights into how people and brands interact digitally is crucial, and indeed sets the stage for the foreseeable future. Spear has appeared in publications including Time Magazine, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and has presented for such diverse clients as McDonald's, NBC, Pepsi, Virgin, The American Advertising Federation and The Google Zeitgeist conference.
Unlocking African prosperity, wealth with Chinery-Hesse
Chinery-Hesse is a renowned Ghanaian technology entrepreneur who co-founded the million-dollar software company SOFTtribe, and then went on to launch BSL, which provides the infrastructure for entrepreneurs across Africa to sell products and receive payment through their cell phones. Chinery-Hesse is passionate about the contribution that technology can make in unlocking prosperity and wealth across Africa, and will be presenting his thesis on this. He has won a number of awards and is also an accomplished speaker who has delivered talks at the Wharton Business School, Harvard Business School, Cambridge University, the University of Ghana, and the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania.
Spear and Chinery-Hesse are part of a line-up of African and international thought leaders from organisations like Amazon, HP, Johns Hopkins University, Mozilla, SwiftRiver, the African Institution of Technology, SimpleGeo, Motribe, Clearleft and Ultinet Systems.
Knight adds, "With Tech4Africa our simple aim is to congregate the best practitioners in Africa and the world to provide inspiration, guidance, case studies, success stories and ultimately experience, so that Africans don't need to travel the world to gain this understanding and exposure."
Registration for the event is open and early bird tickets are available until 10 June. For further information or to register, go to http://tech4africa.com, or to contact Tech4Africa, email moc.acirfa4hcet@olleh or go to http://tech4africa.com/contact/.
