Josh Adler (@joshadlerza) is a self proclaimed “social impact explorer”, trying to figure out how best leverage the nexus of business, technology and social development to create new and meaningful public value. A former tech entrepreneur, he is currently Director for the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the African Leadership Academy.

Josh spent over a decade at the heart of South Africa’s digital industry. First as the founder and editor of Music Industry Online, and then as CEO of Prefix Technologies – where he and his partners built some of South Africa’s most relied upon content management and delivery software tools including Preditor CMS and pMailer (now Everlytic – www.everlytic.com). He was also Head of Measurement of the Digital Media and Marketing Association (DMMA) from 2009 to 2011, where he drove the adoption of a more affordable and accessible internet audience currency.

Along the way, Josh has been fortunate to participate in a few leadership development programmes including Brightest Young Minds (2001), Common Purpose (2003), NEXUS at Gibs (2004) and the Cambridge Programme for Sustainable Industry (2007). In 2009, he and his business partner were recognized as “high-impact” entrepreneurs by Endeavor (www.endeavor.org).

In 2011, Josh left the world of business to study International Development at the University of Geneva’s IOMBA program in Switzerland. While there, he found his interests focus upon the role of business in society and measuring development impact, particularly education. He is now a strong Open Data advocate.

Josh currently serves on the boards of the companies he founded and as well as a few young startups, and is a trustee to the Buyani Education Trust.

When not impact exploring, he hangs out with his awesome tech-lawyer wife (@PriaChetty) and two cats, and hopes one day to be a less-terrible snowboarder.