Speakers

Clay Shirky

Clay is a provocative new voice on all things Internet: economics and culture, media and community, and the open source movement. He divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the way network technologies provide new ways for groups to get things done, including collaboration tools, social networks, peer-to-peer sharing, collaborative fi ltering, and Open Source development.

In addition to his consulting work, Clay is an adjunct professor in NYU’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where he teaches courses on the interrelated effects of social and technological network topology—how our networks shape culture and vice-versa. Prior to his appointment at NYU, Clay was a partner at The Accelerator Group, an investment firm focused on early-stage companies.

Formerly, he was the chief technology officer of the NYC-based Web media and design firm Site Specific, where he created the company’s media tracking database and server log analysis software. Site Specifi c was later acquired by CKS Group, where Clay was promoted to VP Technology, Eastern Region.

Clay has written extensively about the Internet since 1996. His recent book, Here Comes Everybody, explores the effects of open networks, collaboration and user created and disseminated content on organizations and industries. Over the years, he has had regular columns in Business 2.0, FEED, OpenP2P.com and ACM Net_Worker, and his writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, Wired, Release 1.0, Computerworld, and IEEE Computer. He has been interviewed by Slashdot, Red Herring, Media Life, and The Economist’s Ebusiness Forum. Time Magazine featured him with other futurists in a fall 2005 story entitled “What’s Next.”

Clay frequently speaks on emerging technologies at a variety of forums and organizations, including TED Global, PC Forum, the Internet Society, the Department of Defense, the BBC, the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Highlands Forum, the Economist Group, Storewidth, the World Technology Network, and several O’Reilly conferences on Peer-to-Peer, Open Source, and Emerging Technology.

Clay’s writings are archived at www.shirky.com, and he also maintains a blog on his book at www.herecomeseverybody.org.

Find him on Twitter @cshirky (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Assorted YouTube videos, and results on TED.

Leila Chirayath Janah

Leila Chirayath Janah is the founder and CEO of Samasource a social business that connects over 800 women, youth, and refugees living in poverty to digital work. Samasource's iPhone application, "Give Work," employs innovative crowdsourcing technology and has been downloaded by over 20,000 volunteers in 75 countries. Samasource is a current grantee of the Rockefeller and Mulago Foundations and a recipient of the Netexplorateur Innovation Prize from the French Senate. Earlier in her career, Janah was a founding Director of Incentives for Global Health, a Yale-based nonprofit developing new financing mechanisms for pharmaceutical R&D on neglected diseases, and a consultant at Katzenbach Partners (now Booz & Company), where she served leading companies in the telecommunications, healthcare, and outsourcing sectors.

Ms. Janah has published academic research with the World Bank's Development Research Group and is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, technology, and international development at institutions including MIT, Stanford, and Harvard. Her work has been profiled by CBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The New Scientist, and in 2010, she was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Women in Technology. She serves on the board of TechSoup Global and is a member of International Association of Outsourcing Professionals' sub-committee on Corporate Social Responsibility. Leila received a BA from Harvard University.

Find her on Twitter @leila_c (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Assorted YouTube videos, and presentations on SlideShare.

Alex Hunter

Alex Hunter is an independent digital ninja, brand consultant, company adviser, and micro-venture capital investor.

Alex is also a noted public speaker, appearing at events all over the world.

Previously, Alex served as the global Head of Online Marketing for the Virgin Group. Before joining the Virgin Group, Alex was based in California at Virgin America, where he used the web to build a grassroots marketing campaign to garner public support for Virgin America’s certification process on a tight schedule and even tighter budget. The campaign was covered by Time magazine, CNN, and CNBC, amongst others. He also oversaw the front-end development of Virgin America’s website which has since won several accolades including ad:tech and Webby Award honors.

He has served as an adviser to the Prince of Wales’ Rainforest Trust specifically around the use of social media and engagement to propagate the Trusts’ message.

Alex’s work has been featured in the best-selling book “The Whuffie Factor” by Tara Hunt.

He has been a mentor at the annual SeedCamp venture capital and angel funding event in London, helping young companies refine their marketing and branding before pitching to some of the most influential VCs in the tech community.

Alex currently splits his time between the UK and Northern California.

Find him on Twitter @cubedweller (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Andy Budd

Andy Budd is an interaction designer and web standards developer from Brighton, England. As the user experience lead at Clearleft, Andy spends his time helping clients improve their customers online experience.

Andy is a regular speaker at international design events such as SXSW, An Event Apart and Web Design World. He also runs the popular dConstruct conference, which takes place in Brighton every year. Andy has helped judge several international design awards and currently sits on the advisory board for .Net magazine. Andy wrote the best selling book, CSS Mastery and blogs at andybudd.com.

Never happier than when he's diving some remote tropical atoll, Andy is a qualified PADI dive instructor and retired shark wrangler.

He's interested in: User experience design.

Find him on Twitter @andybudd (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Basheera Khan

Basheera Khan is a user experience designer based in London. A former journalist, Bash’s first technology reporting job was with ITWeb in 1998. She moved to Wales in 2001, joining Swansea University’s computer science department to edit itwales.com, an EU-funded project to improve Welsh SMEs' take-up of business technology. It was here that Bash developed an interest in UX, particularly around information architecture and process design. In 2004, Bash founded Ping Wales, an independent news site covering the Welsh tech sector. Although it had a healthy reader base, Ping Wales proved commercially unviable and the site closed in 2007. In 2008 Bash moved to London and started blogging for TechCrunch Europe and the Telegraph, among others. She began the transition from journalism to UX in August 2009. These days Bash divides her time between client projects and bootstrapping a new tech startup, PlayNice.ly.

Find her on Twitter @Bash (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Dustin Diaz

Dustin Diaz is a User Interface Engineer at Twitter, author of JavaScript Design Patterns, and a photographer.

He lives in San Francisco, CA.

Find him on Twitter @ded (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Erin Caton

Erin is an organizational fiend as well as a snappy dresser. Her career began in the film production industry, moved into web development and then into project management, so she is both neurotic and well rounded.  She is PMI (Project Management Institute) trained but prefers a more agile approach to engineering and project management, because if all projects began with such arduous documentation, she fears nothing would ever get launched. She has had the pleasure of working as a Project Manager for ParadisePoker (game software in Costa Rica), MindSpan Technologies (software and web start up), BlastRadius (digital advertising agency) and now is a Senior Engineering Project Manager at Apple. When she isn't making lists or poking engineers with pointy sticks, she is cooking, eating, taking photos and cycling around San Francisco.

Find her on Twitter @erin (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Joe Stump

Joe Stump has been scaling large websites for over ten years. After spending a few years as Digg's Lead Architect he struck out on his own, with Matt Galligan, to found SimpleGeo. As CTO of SimpleGeo he's responsible for architecting and scaling a robust GIS infrastructure for developers around the world.

Joe has authored pieces for O'Reilly's ONLAMP.com and has spoken at Web 2.0 Expo, FOWA, FOWD, Q-Con, SXSW, MySQL Conference and PHP-Con, to name a few.

Joe is an expert in the LAMP stack and graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a BA in Computer Information Systems.

Find him on Twitter @joestump (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

John Resig

John Resig is a JavaScript Tool Developer for the Mozilla Corporation and the author of the book Pro JavaScript Techniques. He's also the creator and lead developer of the jQuery JavaScript library.

He's hard at work on his second book, Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja, due in bookstores in 2009.

Find out more at: LinkedIn, his Projects, and his Research.

Currently, John is located in Boston, MA.

Find him on Twitter @jeresig (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Jonathan Snook

A web designer and developer based in Ottawa, Canada, Jonathan Snook is a gifted creator of striking designs, impeccable markup and code, and forward-thinking ideas and applications.

His fluency and expertise in CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL make him the “turn-to” man for agencies; high-profile clients in government, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations; and fellow web developers.

Jonathan writes regularly for his blog, Snook.ca and has teamed up with a dynamic group of world-class partners to form Sidebar Creative, who take on major projects as well as inventing innovative applications, including Snitter, My Mile Marker, and Overheard.it.

Photo: Dan Rubin.

Find him on Twitter @snookca (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Adrian Schofield

Born in the south of England, Adrian's career began in the petroleum industry and later moved into casino administration. Adrian emigrated to Southern Africa in 1981 (acquiring South African citizenship in the new democracy), where he has worked in casino management, in financial computer systems, in payroll processing, in software development & sales before moving into recruitment & contracting of IT skills, then on to management of technical training before joining CompTIA in January 2000 as the regional International Sales & Marketing Director. During the period 1987 to 1999, Adrian held business unit director posts in Rennies Group, Q Data Group and SilverLine Resources.

From 2003 to 2005, he carried out consulting contracts with ISET SETA, SAP and City of Joburg/Wits University. He joined ForgeAhead in March 2005, where he was Head of Consulting (specialising in the use of ICT in Government) until moving to the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering at Wits University in 2008 as Manager: Applied Research Unit. He occasionally lectures on the Management of Technology. Adrian has spent more than 20 years being involved in activities to promote standards and growth in the ICT sector.He currently serves in these voluntary capacities:

• President of Computer Society South Africa
• Member of the Steering Committee of the SAVANT Project at the Department of Trade & Industry to promote the capacity of the South African ICT industry
• Member of Reference Group at SAQA
• Member of the Advisory Body for Career Planet
• Chairman of the Wanderers Club

In the past, Adrian has also served as President of the Information Technology Association of South Africa, as Vice-Chairman for Africa of the World Information Technology & Services Alliance and Chairman of the African Federation of ICT Associations. He has represented South Africa at conferences in Taiwan, Australia, Greece and USA and supported industry development initiatives in East and West Africa. He was a member of the Steering Committee and initial Board Member of ISETT SETA, chaired the initial IT Standards Generating Body and was a member of the Task Team for the ICT Charter Working Group. Adrian was also the business sector representative in the NEDLAC ICT Sector Committee and an Advisory Board member of NEMISA. He is a Professional grade member of CSSA.

Find him on Twitter @randjes (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Agosta Liko

Agosta Liko is the Founder of PesaPal, a mobile payments company in Nairobi, Kenya.

Agosta has over 10 years IT experience in Banking and Financial Services. Prior to starting PesaPal, Liko founded Verviant Consulting Services - a Software Outsourcing Company based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Find him on Twitter @agostaliko (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Alistair Fairweather

Alistair has been working in online publishing since 2001. Starting out as a web designer, he worked for tech start-ups in both Johannesburg and England.

Returning to South Africa in 2002, he moved into an editorial position on MWEB’s portal team. The role quickly evolved into an online product management position, in which he cut his teeth building web applications for MWEB’s subscriber base.

When MWEB’s portal team were absorbed by 24.com in 2006, he continued his dual roles in editorial and product management. In 2007 he took the opportunity to specialise in product management as part of the team that would later form 20FourLabs – the erstwhile innovation division of 24.com.

While at Labs he oversaw the launch of a range of new products, including Answerit and Letterdash. He also managed the 24.com user community, nurturing Letterdash past the 1 million page impression mark, and helping to create South Africa’s largest blogging platform.

In late 2009 he joined Media24 Magazines for a brief stint as their Social Media Manager. The portfolio includes power brands like Huisgenoot, YOU, Fairlady, Go!, Men's Health and many more.

As of July 2010 he has taken on the role of Digital Platforms Manager for the Mail & Guardian Online.

Find him on Twitter @afairweather (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Allan Kent

Allan is a born and bred South African who still lives, works and plays in Cape Town.  A reformed developer, he currently heads up Saatchi & Saatchi AtPlay, the digital division of Saatchi & Saatchi in South Africa.  On his way there he worked on a Help Desk, built some computers and co-authored some books.  The guy in Enter the Dragon is not him.

Find him on Twitter @allankent (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Andrea Böhmert

Andrea is Co-Managing Partner and Director of Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa, a Venture Capital Fund founded in early 2008 by Professor Hasso Plattner, co-founder of global leader in ERP software, SAP. With two Masters degrees and senior management positions in Corporate South Africa behind her, Andrea has spend the last eight years being hands-on involved with early stage tech entrepreneurs.

Andrea serves on the board of several start-up ventures and is an active member of the South African IT and Business Incubation environment and often speaks on matters related to entrepreneurship in South Africa.

Andy Hadfield

An expert in the design of web strategies and online communities, Andy Hadfield is internationally recognised as a pioneer on the South African Internet.

Andy’s groundbreaking work has led to numerous accolades, including being identified as a future South African leader by Common Purpose International and Brightest Young Minds. He also represented South Africa as a Web Ambassador in SABC’s TV series, S’Camto Groundbreakers.

His IT career began early when he successfully co-launched the largest national student portal at the time (www.gAL.co.za) while still studying at the University of Cape Town (UCT) for a degree in Communications. The site revolutionised the way corporate South Africa interacted with youth brands and helped companies understand and unlock the potential of the internet as a viable and measurable media channel. In fact, some might say it was the first social network to hit South Africa.

He then spent 4 years as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for The Virtual Works, where his unique approach to strategic development is evident in the company’s systems, such as the pioneering niche social networking site (www.designmind.co.za) and the Web 2.0 employee engagement solution developed for Deloitte Southern Africa.

He joined FNB in 2008 to drive digital adoption in the Personal Banking segment. He has to date worked on projects such as the FNB Premier Banking FaceBook presence, SA's first corporate crowdsourcing initiative with IdeaBounty, the redesign of FNB.co.za and the Amazon-style online sales system that delivers banking products to you from the comfort of your couch (in under 10 minutes).

He can be found on almost every digital community, but catch his best musings on www.andyhadfield.com

Find him on Twitter @andyhadfield (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Andy Higgins

Andy Higgins is the co-founder and Managing Director of bidorbuy.co.za, South Africa's leading online marketplace. He is also on the board of directors at payfast.co.za, a company specialising in online payments for South Africa, jobs.co.za, an online jobs portal and jump.co.za, an online shopping comparison web site. Andy has over 12 years experience in the Internet industry having been involved in Internet start-ups on 5 continents. He has a BSc in Electronic Engineering from the University of Natal and an MBA from Wits Business School.

Angela Gahagan

A nominated candidate for the Business Woman of the Year award, and the Managing Executive of MTN Business, Angela Gahagan has been a catalyst and facilitator for change for many years – not only in the telecommunications industry but in the wider business arena.

Having started her career in 1977 in the financial consulting field, after obtaining her OND Business Studies and Institute of Bankers’ qualifications at the Poole College of Education in Britain, Angela remained in the financial industry sector until 1993 when she moved into the position of Special Project Manager at Amalgamated Appliances (Pty) Ltd. In 1994, Angela became the financial manager at Knight Piesold (Pty) Ltd and moved onto a managing director position for MediTrac (Pty) Ltd in 1999. In 2002, Angela was appointed to the position of Operations/Client Services Director for Medscheme.

It was in 2004 that Angela began her career at Verizon Business SA (then UUNET SA (Pty) Ltd) in the capacity of Customer Services Executive and soon after promoted to Country Manager for the Verizon Business’s operations in Southern Africa which included South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya and Zambia.

During her two years as Country Manager, Angela accomplished many achievements, including obtaining a double digit above budget performance on sales year-on-year, two nominations for the Forge Ahead ICT Woman of the Year Award, as well as leading Verizon Business SA to be nominated for the Most Transformed Company of the Year in 2006.

In March 2009 Verizon Business SA was acquired by MTN and Angela was appointed in the Managing Executive role to head up the merged ISP businesses owned by MTN where she has already led a successful M&A transition and continues to drive a business that is showing strong growth. Angela continues to work closely with her local peers to showcase South Africa’s capabilities and bring Africa into the spotlight internationally – a position she believes it rightly deserves.

Angus Robinson

Angus Robinson started Brandsh Media, a mobile and social media agency, in late 2006. The agency now employs over 30 individuals who share Angus’ innate curiosity about social media and the ways it can be maximised to reach target audiences. With clients such as Standard Bank, Liberty, JSE, MNEt, LoveLife and Seacom, Brandsh is behind the social media campaigns which have seen a valuable Return On Investment for these clients.

Angus has 15 years’ experience in the industry and is a founding member of the South African Chapter of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). As a member of the mobile industry, Brandsh is a member of WASPA and Angus is active on the WASPA Code of Conduct Committee and a number of other WASPA subcommittees. Angus has a B.Com degree.

Find him on Twitter @angusrobinson (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Arthur Goldstuck

Arthur is an award-winning writer, analyst and commentator on Internet, mobile and business and consumer technologies. He heads the World Wide Worx research organisation, leading groundbreaking research into how change is affecting businesses large and small. Clients of the research include South Africa’s major financial institutions and corporations, Government departments and agencies, and international organisations.

Arthur is author of 17 books, including South Africa’s best-selling IT book yet, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet", and the current guide to mobilising the workplace, “The Mobile Office”. Through Penguin Books, he has also published five books on urban legends.

For his work in uncovering technology trends, Arthur was a finalist in the science and technology category of the Men’s Health Man of the Year awards in 2009.

He is a regular speaker at conferences, universities and corporate events and has presented his insights to audiences across the world.

Find him on Twitter @art2gee (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Barbara Mallinson

Barbara Mallinson is the young South African who founded Obami. She was born and schooled in Joburg, and studied at UCT.

Barbara spent 5 years in London, working the corporate world, before starting up her own business. With her own savings, the backing of a UK Government Grant, and support from those closest, Obami was born.

Obami is a social networking site that’s been developed specifically for schools; facilitating e-learning, communication and collaboration between and amongst pupils, teachers and parents. Understanding the importance of online safety, Barbara built Obami as a walled garden – a safe environment for kids to interact with each other, and the adults in their lives. Obami is offered free so that any school is able to benefit from the role that social media can play in support of face-to-face communications (a number of other well thought out revenue streams allowing for this).

Barbara has brought Obami back to South Africa to try and make a difference in the country that she’s always called home.

Find her on Twitter @barbsmall (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Brett Commaille

Brett is the CEO of Invenfin Venture Capital, an early stage venture capital fund owned by the Remgro Ltd, which invests into intellectual property which can be commercialized internationally.

As a CA, Brett has worked in audit, merchant banking and consulting both in South Africa and internationally. His work with both small and large, multi-national companies, has exposed him to the inner workings of a vast array of businesses. As an entrepreneur, Brett has also personally invested into several start-ups over the years. As a venture capitalist, his passion is to assist entrepreneurs to realize their ambitions as they create and grow their own businesses.

Brett serves on the board of several start-up ventures and is an active member of and speaker on matters related to the start-up community in South Africa.

Brett Haggard

Brett Haggard is the founder of Hypertext Media and publisher of Connect – a South African technology magazine that speaks the language of the average, man in the street technology user. 

Hypertext was started with no capital as a writing consultancy with aspirations of entering the publishing space, albeit as a custom-publishing operation.

Five years later it has become a successful participant in the South African print publishing market and now specialises in assisting customer-facing businesses in developing valuable, engaging communications mechanisms such as print publications, websites, newsletters and increasingly, social media presences. Hypertext is a rapidly growing publisher and strongly focusing on channeling profits into a number of new start-up projects aimed at addressing the informational needs of a variety of niche interests.   

While lately, his days are more filled with opportunities to drink coffee and converse with smart people than what they are filled with wordsmithing, Haggard still regularly contributes to a number of print and online publications and dishes a healthy dose of opinion out on the weekly podcast, ZA Tech Show. 

Find him on Twitter @brettski (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Bright Simons

Bright B. Simons is a technology innovator, development activist and social entrepreneur. As an Executive at Accra-based think tank IMANI (www.imanighana.org), he contributes to activities that challenge received wisdom about Africa's development challenges. As President of the mPedigree Network (www.mPedigree.Net), he pioneered a system that empowers consumers to instantly verify with a free text message whether their medicines are safe and not counterfeit, while providing pharma companies previously inaccessible market intelligence. Counterfeit medicines are reckoned by experts to kill at least 2000 people daily in the developing world and can constitute more than 40% of all medicines on sale in some countries.

Bright is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Councils and Technology Pioneers Community. He is also an Ashoka Fellow, TED Fellow, Tech Museum Laureate and a Brain Trust member of the Evian Group at IMD, widely considered Europe's foremost business school. His work have led to speaking engagements around the world and consequently to numerous citations in the international press, ranging from the Economist, New York Times, the Financial Times, BusinessWeek, Asian Times, and the BBC, where he is a regular commentator for the World Service. In 2010, he was conferred with an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Award by the African Leadership Institute. 

Find him on Twitter @BBSimons (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Chris Norton

Chris Norton joined VMware in September 2006 and is currently the regional director for Southern Africa. In his Role he is responsible for developing the local teams and ensuring that the company is successful in 33 countries across Africa. Chris provides customers and potential customers with support and virtualisation solutions and has more than 18 years of industry experience.

Chris Roper

Chris Roper was the founding portal manager of Vodacom World Online, responsible for the launch of the South African portal for Dutch company World Online (later Tiscali). He moved to MWEB, where he was portal manager for SA's biggest ISP, and for a long time the biggest website in South Africa.

He was with 24.com, in its various iterations, for nearly ten years, filling various roles. He has been portal manager for MWEB Africa, Editor Social Media at 24.com, and Editor-in-Chief at 24.com.

He has overseen many Media24/MWEB projects, such as the first local blogging platform (MWEB Blogs), the implementation of QQ instant messaging in SA, and the creation of numerous new sites and applications, in areas ranging from online learning to youth projects, hard news (notably Tiscali World Online News, MWeb News, 24.com News, and now the new, in-development Mail & Guardian news site) to entertainment, to mobile and Web 2.0 products. The last two years have been spent building up the multimedia offerings on 24.com, and specifically working within the Media24 group to grow video and broadband products.

The intersection of print, television and online brands is a particular area of interest, and time spent consulting to Naspers companies in Sao Paulo (Abril) and San Francisco (Mediazone, Kuduclub).

He has kept his hand in at print, and has worked for many publications over the years, including Consulting Editor to SL, Cape Editor for Y magazine, Editor on Obrigado (PICA Entertainment Magazine of the Year in its first year of existence), Arts correspondent for the Mail & Guardian for ten years, and monthly columnist for a variety of magazines including Style, Drive Out, Femina, Shape and Best Life.

In 2008/2009, Chris was one of News24's most popular weekly columnists, was in 2008 named as one of SA's ten most influential bloggers by Moneyweb, and is the holder of the 2008PICA magazine columnist of the year award. Being active in all three of those platforms means that he can speak to oldschool website devotees, new-fangled Web 2.0 mavens, and disgruntled paper people as an equal.

When a writer for print, he received two Mondi award nominations, including one Mondi silver Features Award for Cosmo Man, and a few PICA awards, details of which he has unfortunately forgotten, except for the 2008 Columnist of the Year award. He blogs on www.chrisroper.co.za, and you can follow him on Twitter @ChrisRoperZA. He is currently the Editor of the Mail & Guardian Online.

Find him on Twitter @chrisroperza (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Christine da Silva

AlterSage is led by Christine da Silva (nee Stander), a well respected Search Engine Optimisation and Online Marketing Strategist. She has an enviable depth of experience and knowledge of the Online Marketing industry gained over nine years together with her reputation has secured AlterSage clients from around the globe.

Having in her career headed the Online Marketing division of South Africa’s most successful online travel company, Search Divisions for the two leading Search Engine Marketing companies in South Africa, as well as consulted to a well respected international search leader, Christine set out to fine tune and provide more robust, result oriented Online Marketing services.

In her opinion it was not enough to purely enable websites to rank better online, but rather a two-fold process that increases the website exposure online and simultaneously improves the usability and conversion performance of the website as well.

This means that after the site is found online, visitors move through it with ease to perform the required goal – whether that is to buy a product, call a consultant, sign up for a newsletter or submit an enquiry.

In 2006, determined to offer clients a solution which would be custom created for their specific goals, industry and audience, she launched AlterSage Online Marketing.

Since opening the AlterSage doors she has tutored and grown her in-house team in the fields of web copywriting, SEO, PPC and strategy. Her team is as passionate about gaining sustainable results as she is. The team is well experienced in the USA, UK and SA markets for a very wide range of industries as can be seen by AlterSage’s Online Marketing Portfolio.

AlterSage now consults to UK Search Marketing and Digital Agencies clients’ as well as maintaining key relationships with a number of international and South African clients directly.

Which ever project or industry she has previously consulted for she has rapidly acquired a reputation for strategizing, execution and delivery on competitive niches gaining her clients measurable and sustainable results.

Christine is passionate about everything she does and inspires both her team and clients through striving uncompromisingly for the best results proven by AlterSage’s Online Marketing Case Studies.

Find her on Twitter @daschristine (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

David Reynders

David Reynders is the founding Managing Director of Pocit, a mobile payments platform and a division of tradebridge.

Before heading the team that developed Pocit, Reynders was involved in Business and Product Development (1999 to 2007) at healthbridge, a sister division of tradebridge. Whilst there, he pioneered a number of firsts including Sure Swipe, a retail point of sale payment provider, a further spin-off division of tradebridge.

MSc Elec. Eng. with distinction, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

BSc Engineering (Electrical) with distinction, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Find him on Twitter @davidreynders (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Dereck Wilcocks

Derek considers himself privileged to be the leader of the 1,300 amazing people that form the human network that is Internet Solutions, a company synonymous with the Internet and 21st century corporate culture in Africa. Derek was the 12th person to join Internet Solutions way back in 1995 when 64kbps was huge, firewalls prevented fires, and the Internet had a text interface. He has held various positions within Internet Solutions and Dimension Data, its holding company after an acquisition in 1998, ever since. Derek is married with two children and his interests include philosophy, history, and bird watching. Derek holds a B.Econ.Sc and a B.Sc (Hons) from the University of the Witwatersrand. With these interests and qualifications his following at dinner parties and on Twitter is somewhat limited, but totally committed.

Find him on Twitter @derekwilcocks (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Duncan McLeod

Duncan McLeod is editor of TechCentral, SA's quality technology news site. Prior to starting TechCentral in September 2009, McLeod was technology editor at Financial Mail. He has won a number of journalism awards over the years, and is known for his passionate views on SA's technology industry.

Find him on Twitter @mcleodd (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Elan Lohmann

Elan Lohmann has been a local online pioneer and professional for the past 10 yrs holding many key corporate and industry positions over this time. He led News24.com, SA’s leading website, as publisher over a 3 year period where the site became the first and still is the only SA site to pass 1 million domestic users and the unit also became profitable over this time. Additionally he started up many news businesses for the 24.com group including Sport24, Netads24, 24.com Social Media and recently took charge of the Property24 rebuild. He also spent a period managing the Blueworld investment for 24.com. Then moving within the group to Naspers’s MIH Internet Africa to head up Mobile social communication platforms for the African market.

Elan was a founding member of the Online Publishing Association (OPA) and spent 2 years on the exco as Head of Monitoring. In Nov 2007 he was also invited to chair the IFRA: Beyond the Printed Word Conference in Dublin where 450 top digital execs from around the world were in attendance.

In Aug 2009 Elan returned to his publishing roots at the Sunday Times to head up Digital for AVUSA Media (previously Johncom). His portfolio includes Times Live, Sowetan Sunday World and other print titles in the group. Elan has established himself as a no nonsense internet professional with a reputation for getting things done. He is passionate about growing the local industry and helping talent youth come through the ranks.

Find him on Twitter @elanlohmann (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Erik Hersman

Erik is the co-founder of Ushahidi (which means "testimony" in Swahili), a web application created to map the reported incidents of violence happening during the post-election crisis in Kenya. Currently, he is working with a team of mostly-African programmers to continue development of this new free and open source platform that makes it easier to crowdsource crisis information and visualize data. Ushahidi has been used for disasters in Haiti and Chile, by media organizations such as Al Jazeera and the Washington Post, for election monitoring in India, Afghanistan, Namibia and Mexico, and for multiple other uses around the world.

Erik Hersman is also the founder of AfriGadget, a multi-author website that showcases stories of Africans solving everyday problems with little more than their creativity and ingenuity. Fascinated by micro-entrepreneurs, gadgets and improvisation, he is proving that technology is changing Africa - daily.

Raised in Sudan and Kenya, Erik brings unique energy and insight to the world of technology and innovation, bridging the gap between Africa and Silicon Valley. An avid blogger Erik writes two different technology blogs including: AfriGadget and WhiteAfrican. One dedicated to low-tech African ingenuity, and the other to high-tech mobile and web changes happening throughout Africa.

Find him on Twitter @whiteafrican (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Eve Dmochowska

Eve is passionate about the potential of the South African online space, and spends most of her time working on her own online projects, helping others work on theirs and educating companies as to how to best harness the web.

She is the founder of Crowdfund (a crowdsourced angel fund for SA startups), Geekdigest (the website that promotes South African geeks' activities and accomplishments).

Eve is the publisher of the Directory of South African Web Experts” as well as the premium “Two Jumps Ahead Digests” that help agencies and corporates make sense of the online space.

Her online ventures include The Buyers Bibles and Dealcatcher.

More information can be found on www.EveD.co.za.

Find her on Twitter @EveD (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Fred Baumhardt

Fred Baumhardt is the Specialist Sales Director and Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft South Africa. Fred is responsible for the product sales force for Microsoft across both the Enterprise, Public Sector and Small and Mid-Market groups.Prior to that, Fred was the United Kingdom Incubation Sales Director –which is the specialist group that builds Microsoft’s new and cutting edge businesses, and on-boards its acquisitions.Fred started his career at Microsoft in 2000 as a senior consultant in Microsoft Services, and then as the EMEA Security Architect, and sales lead.

Personally- Family, Alpine Skiing, adventure racing, and X-box are Freds main non-work interests. Prior to joining Microsoft, Fred's engagements have included defense and field intelligence services, so he can’t really talk about that……

Fritz Ekwoge

Fritz Ekwoge, aka Fee, happens to be an entrepreneur from Cameroon whose current focus is creating an African tech company run right. As a former senior consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Fritz has had the luxury of visiting many other African countries, helping him comprehend and appreciate the similarities and diversity of this beautiful continent called Africa.

Fritz, a locally trained software engineer, is the co-founder of a pan-african online classifieds called Kerawa.com, which is very popular in Cameroon, and gaining momentum in some neighbouring countries.

Kerawa.com is web based. His next venture , iYam.mobi, is SMS based. When Fritz starts talking about SMS based projects, he never stops.

Find him on Twitter @ekwogefee (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Gareth Ochse

Gareth Ochse is an Internet and mobile entrepreneur with related experience in venture capital and strategy consulting. Gareth is founder of iSigned.com (offering secure, permanent storage for legal & other important documents). He also acts as a director of DNA Economics (a specialist economics consultancy), and Mira (a Mobile transaction processing business). In previous start-up lives, Gareth has founded businesses such as Refer-X (viral marketing for indie music, later viral marketing for J2ME mobile games), and Buzzfuse.com (marketing and monetisation of user generated content – blogs, tweets, music, photos, etc).

Unlike others, Gareth is not interested in copying a foreign concept for the local market, nor doing something that has niche or limited potential. Gareth “wants to do big things that solve difficult problems and make a tangible difference to passionate people”.

Gareth has expertise in software start-ups, and has hands on experience in system design, user experience design, financial modelling, capital raising, legal structures, billing, technical team recruiting and management, making tea, product sales, and all the other ups and downs of leading-edge technology businesses across web and mobile realms.

Between 1998 and early 2000, Gareth worked as a consultant with Bain & Co, one of the worlds premier strategy consultancies. Gareth was a founding team-member of Bainlab, which opened in London in 1999 and invested sweat and equity in early stage technology businesses.

Gareth has a B.Com from Wits with a focus on Economics and Finance.

Gareth holds SA Schools, SA Universities, and SA national colours for rowing. He represented SA at World Championship level during 1992-1994, holds Wits and UCT full-blues, and was twice runner up in the Wits sportsman of the year competition. Gareth now focuses on mountain bike stage racing and has completed the cape-epic, and many multi-day races.

Gareth is married with 2 children.

You can find out more about Gareth on http://www.linkedin.com/in/garethochse

Find him on Twitter @garethochse (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Gareth Knight

Gareth is a digital maven, technology entrepreneur, consultant and open source evangelist. Educated as a zoologist, he is a veteran of two dot com bubbles in London, one acquisition, and runs Technovated, a leading web 2.0 provider based in London and Johannesburg.

Previously, Gareth served in London as Director of Product Management for MyHeritage.com, a global family genealogy company based in Tel Aviv.

Before joining MyHeritage, Gareth landed seed funding from London’s top early stage investors to co-found Kindo.com, a global family social network with an international team spread around the world. He then led the Product team in London to roll out a localised version of Kindo in 17 languages within 6 months, as well as an aggressive search engine campaign, both of which resulted in users from circa 220 countries and an enviable growth rate.

Kindo was voted one of the top 3 most promising Internet companies in the UK for 2008, and was acquired by MyHeritage in August that year.

In 2010 Gareth was named one of South Africa’s “200 Young South Africans You have to take to lunch” by the Mail & Guardian newspaper, and in 2009 was one of “35 Men of Influence – 35 South Africans Under 35” by GQ magazine. Gareth is the person behind TECH4AFRICA, a web, mobile and emerging tech conference, which brings global experience and perspective to the African context.

Gareth splits his time between Technovated offices in London and Johannesburg. He also mentors people in Johannesburg who are starting out in the digital industry.

View his professional profile on LinkedIn

Find him on Twitter @oneafrikan (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Graham Watts

Graham Watts is the head of technology at Core Group, the Apple Value Added Distributor for Southern Africa. With a background in Information Technology and nearly a decade of experience working in the Apple industry, Graham moved to South Africa in 2006 and is responsible for the business development of Apple's media and IT market segments. Graham's professional interests include broadcast solutions, open source, and the role technology plays in transforming education.

Ivo Vegter

Ivo Vegter is a columnist for The Daily Maverick, an experienced technology journalist for ITWeb and Brainstorm, and an occasional contributor to other publications both locally and worldwide. He has covered the IT industry in South Africa since 1993, has blogged over a quarter of a million words on subjects ranging from economic theory to global warming, and frequently serves as chairman at ITWeb's regular industry conferences.

He has particular interests in telecommunications, public policy and economics, including the potential for mobile payments to promote trade and prosperity in Africa.

Find him on Twitter @ivovegter (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Jason Norwood-Young

Alpha geek, developer, journalist, editor, List-god, husband and father, Jason Norwood-Young has been living digital since he was seven.

Jason is currently head of technology for the Mail & Guardian Online, which includes Africa’s oldest news site mg.co.za, ThoughtLeader (www.thoughtleader.co.za), TechLeader (www.techleader.co.za) and SportsLeader (www.sportsleader.co.za). 

He codes in PHP, occasionally dips into Perl, converted from Linux to Mac two years ago, and dreams in binary. Both his mother and wife still run Linux.

As an IT journalist and editor for ten years, he has published in Maverick, the Mail & Guardian, Stuff, ITWeb and ITWeb Brainstorm, BusinessDay and Financial Mail, among others. 

He attributes his success to his height and his double-barreled surname.

Find him on Twitter @j_norwood_young (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Jeff Fletcher

Jeff graduated from Witwatersrand University with a degree in electrical engineering, and has been involved in Internet technology all his professional life, but with a strong commercial bent. He is expert in the financial side of product development in the Internet Service Provider environment, making sure the technical platform can support products that are, in turn, financially viable.

Jeff started his career at Telkom in 1994, working on the initial Internet infrastructure team and managing aspects of the Johannesburg Beltel installation. Between stints at Sprint (which became UUNET which became Verizon Business), where he designed and implemented new Internet products and services, Jeff founded Antfarm Networking Technologies, South Africa’s first streaming and webcasting company. This was his first taste of entrepreneurial start-up culture, and he liked it.

He returned to the corporate world in 2004, occupying the corner office of the new product development team at Internet Solutions (then IS). His start-up flair was still very much present, and he was a driver behind the team that set up ISlabs, an incubator within IS to bring innovative new Internet ideas to market. A desire to work with smart, dedicated people that deliver a complete solution, rather than being a small cog in a big machine, led him to co-found three6five network solutions, where he makes sure technical solutions always meet a business requirement. When he’s not doing this, he plays bass for electronic funk act One Mighty Atom.

Jon Tullett

"Jon Tullett has been a journalist and editor for about 15 years, working in technology and trade fields in South Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He's currently managing editor at Infixion Media, one of South Africa's largest and longest-standing trade publishing groups

Justin Spratt

An Australian, living in South Africa for the last 5 years. Speaker and writer on issues where technology and economics intersect.

General Manager of VoIP Mobile & Wi-Fi HotSpot businesses at Internet Solutions. Co-founder ISLabs, start-up incubator http://labs.is.co.za.

Co-founder of GeekRetreat www.geekretreat.co.za. Sit on steering committee’s of WAPA (www.wapa.org.za) and Silicon Cape (www.siliconcape.com).

Formerly with investment bank, Morgan Stanley (London), working in Fixed Income on Credit Derivatives trading desk.

Education: BCom (Finance; Deans List) Honours (Cum Laude); MBA (GIBS).

www.sandboxsavant.com

Find him on Twitter @justinspratt (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Malcolm Hall

Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Malcolm was a founder member of a successful start-up (The World On Line) focused on Microsoft Great Plains—a mid-market ERP package—in the 1990's.

Upon moving to the UK in 1998, Malcolm, as a member of the Deloitte (UK) and then e2i (UK) management teams, managed consultancy teams in the London, Central and Northern regions of the United Kingdom. Malcolm has extensive hands-on technical experience and has also programme managed IT projects across the UK, Germany, France, Spain, The Netherlands and the US.

Since founding Open Box Software, a bespoke .Net software development company, Malcolm has divided his time between US, UK and South Africa overseeing operations and project delivery. He is also responsible for developing further relationships with prospective and current clients, as well as partners and suppliers.

Malcolm holds BComm and BSocSci degrees from the University of Cape Town and the University of South Africa.

Find him on Twitter @mbamhall (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Marcel Klaassen

Marcel is a small business and entrepreneurship enthusiast. He is formally educated in business and finance and is passionate about the role that technology could play in further enabling new venture creation in South Africa.

After working for some time in the retail banking environment, he became instrumental in establishing and managing Biznetwork - a web based business-support and networking platform commissioned by First National Bank during 2006.

He is very involved in the press and has done several talks on the state of entrepreneurship both locally and abroad. His most recent reads include Crush it by Gary Vaynerchuck and Rework by Jason Fried.

Matthew Buckland

Matthew somewhat of an online maniac. He has worked in the online medium all his working life literally from its inception in South Africa.

He is the former GM of the Mail & Guardian Online and co-founder of award-winning blog aggregator amatomu.com and editorial blog Thought Leader (a 2008 Webby Honoree). Matthew has spoken around the world on online media issues, including New York, Germany, Kenya and London and is a regular media commentator on radio and TV. He was one of the first new media graduates out of Rhodes University and has previously worked for iafrica.com, Carte Blanche (Interactive), Johncom (e-media) and the BBC Online (beeb.com) in the UK. He is a computer fundi and has had one since the age of 7 (ZX Spectrum 48k), where he spent most of his time creating computer games in BASIC.

Matthew is a prominent blogger at matthewbuckland.com. One of his proudest moments was when some of the world's biggest blogs -- including Techcrunch, Mashable, his favourite site, Wired.com, and technology site Techmeme -- tried to break his servers by linking to his blog. Miraculously, they stayed up. His next proudest moment was when his blog scooped "best business blog" at the 2008 SA blog awards. He was also proud to share the stage with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in a talk on "Future Web Trends" in 2007.

He is currently the GM of publishing and social media at 24.com.

He's interested in: web trends, the future, online media, media 2.0, web 2.0, blogs, convergence, web strategy.

Matthew can be found at: matthewbuckland.com, and his favourite web apps gmail, twitter and the underrated google bookmarks, and enjoys eating marie biscuits, with butter inbetween. Yum.

He lives between Joburg and Cape Town at the moment, in RS of A.

Find him on Twitter @matthewbuckland (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis is the founder of Origin Interactive South Africa.

After spending 10 years in the UK and working at one of Europe's leading digital media agencies, Mike brought his insight and experience home to start his own business - Origin Interactive. Through Mike’s career as a UX designer he’s worked on brands like:- Virgin mobile, Virgin Atlantic, Qatar Airlines, MTV, SKY, Nedbank, HMV, BP, Microsoft, The AA. After spending 10 years in the UK and working at one of Europe's leading digital media agencies, Mike brought his insight and experience home to start his own business - Origin Interactive.

Origin is a place where design, user experience and technology meet. An Interactive Media Agency that closes the gap between clients and their customers through a user centred design approach. We love design, and how it makes customers love brands. We dream, design and build solutions, knowing that users react emotionally, instinctively and individually to digital media.

Mike is driven by his love for design, technology and innovation, his aim is to help bring South Africa up to speed where it can compete on an international level in the digital market place.

Find him on Twitter @originsa (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Mike Stopforth

Mike Stopforth is an entrepreneur, writer and speaker who helps companies extract value from Web 2.0 trends and technologies to create smarter, more profitable businesses.

He heads up Cerebra, South Africa’s leading social media company (the sister company of Brandsh Media), which enjoys relationships with local and global brands – Toyota, Standard Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, Samsung Mobile, ABSA, Converse, ASCO (Calvin Klein), Zurich, GIBS, Microsoft, Vodacom and more. These companies have used Cerebra to connect more meaningfully with their consumers outside the corporate firewall, and harness the full potential of employees behind it.

Mike is a technology commentator for popular business and marketing websites, lectures at the Vega School of Branding and features as a guest lecturer on executive programs at the Graduate School of Business in Cape Town, and the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg. He is a popular feature on the local and international business-to-business speaking circuit. In 2009 Mike was named one of South Africa’s “300 Young South Africans to take to lunch” by the Mail & Guardian newspaper, as well as one of “35 men of influence under 35 years of age” by GQ magazine and invited to contribute a chapter on social media to Dion Chang’s 2010 Flux Trends Review publication.

Mike also co-founded Web startup Afrigator, Africa’s social media aggregator, and the 27dinner social networking movement.

Find him on Twitter @mikestopforth (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Nii Simmonds

Nii Simmonds is a recognized speaker, consultant, and sustainable evangelist on African entrepreneurship, sustainable technology, and African innovation. Professionally, Mr. Simmonds is a consultant who has experience in corporate finance, strategic planning, supply chain management, financial innovations and corporate strategy.

Mr. Simmonds is an African blogger who blogs on Nubian Cheetah. Nubian Cheetah seeks to inform those who have an intrinsic interest in Africa's sustainable development with regards to; Impact Investing, financial innovations, ICT, technology, venture capital, social entrepreneurship and affordable health care.

In 2007, Mr. Simmonds was chosen as a TED Fellow, for the 1st TED Global Africa event in Arusha, Tanzania. He is also the 2009 co-organizer of the Annual Maker Faire Africa. He is the Co-founder of Afrobotics, a non-profit that teaches innovation and entrepreneurship using robotics as a tool to get youth and young adults to create innovative technologies to solve everyday problems in Africa. Mr. Simmonds is the Africa Prize Director for the annual William James Foundation business plan competition. Currently, he serves on the board of advisors for Investors Without Borders, Wall Street Without Walls, Gateway Innovations Limited and BarCampGhana.

Mr. Simmonds got his B.S. in Management/Finance from Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University and a minor in Information Systems and Statistical Analysis. Mr. Simmonds holds a Business Process Outsourcing Master Certificate from the Wharton School.

Find him on Twitter @nubiancheetah (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Patrick Kayton

Patrick Kayton co-founded the instructional design agency, Bright Sparks, and has spent the better part of ten years putting ideas into people’s heads.

As a content architect, Patrick has conceptualised, designed and developed scores of highly interactive educational materials, courses and comics principally in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation.

In partnership with his brother Barry, he has developed a unique instructional approach that weaves analytical and creative threads into a powerful tapestry for learning and thinking. Their efforts have addressed audiences and learners of all ages, from impoverished youth in rural Africa to sophisticated MBA students..

Since 2006 the brothers have collaborated on the creation of Cognician, a powerful thought processing software application for the web. (www.cognician.com)

Find him on Twitter @patrickkayton (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Peter Brooke-Sumner

Pete started his online career at Lastminute.com and then moved to Google UK. Pete worked in the UK and European markets in the local Google vertical and so has worked on clients like Bristish Gas, Uswitch, Yell.com and thegumtree.His extensive 5 years Google experience plus all the local African knowledge he gained by setting up the Google South African office gives TMI a great compettitive advantage. Pete runs the TMI office in Cape Town which is the outsource hub for all TMI UK clients and when he is not online you will find him at his favorite local surf spot!

Peter Van der Zee

Peter is a venture capitalist at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) where he makes significant early stage equity investments into promising technology companies with global aspirations. Over the last 3 years his team has invested over R220m in 18 early stage companies, across a broad spectrum of technology sub-sectors including software, consumer electronics, industrial technology and medical devices. Peter holds a B.Bus.Sci (Information Systems) from UCT as well as an MBA (cum laude) from GIBS. In his spare time he is tormented by living so far from the coast, and longs to be on his kite board. Regular tennis, squash and golf seem to help him through this.

Rian Van Der Merwe

Rian Van Der Merwe grew up Stellenbosch, South Africa, where he also received his B.Eng and M.Sc. degrees in Engineering.  In 2001 he took a scholarship to complete his Ph.D in Internet Marketing at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia.  While in Australia, he met an American girl who seemed to be South African at heart, and his relentless pursuit of her eventually led him to move to California, where they got married in 2004.

Rian spent the next 6 years working in Silicon Valley.  After 4 ½ years in eBay’s User Experience Design group, where his last position was as Sr. Manager of Product Strategy, he joined South African startupYola.com in San Francisco as a Sr. Product Manager.

In March 2010, Rian and his family moved back to South Africa permanently where he now works at Yola’s Cape Town office.  He is passionate about user experience and product management, and excited about the great opportunities ahead in the South African Internet space.

You can follow Rian on Twitter here.

Find him on Twitter @rianvdm (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Rob Gilmour

Rob Gilmour is co-founder and current Managing Director of RSAWEB, a local Internet Service Provider specializing in Data Centre Solutions, Hosting & Connectivity. Since its inception in 2001, RSAWEB has grown from a humble start-up to a thriving enterprise under Rob’s leadership, with a national footprint that spans over a wide variety of industries.

With a strong passion for entrepreneurship and technology, Rob has been instrumental in the formation of numerous technology start-ups and related organisations. Rob is currently a director of the RAMP Group, a technology start-up enabling company with a portfolio of affiliated companies that generate a yearly turnover in excess of R50 million. RAMP Group is also responsible for the RAMP Foundation, a non-profit entity that invests in the well-being of the local technology start-up community through initiatives such as Net Prophet.

Rob has also been involved in co-founding and building successful local start-ups such as White Wall Web, award winning web application development company, which specializes in Software as a Service (SaaS) applications; and Even Flow Distribution, leading trade distributor of VoIP (Voice over IP) solutions and related IP peripheral hardware.

Find him on Twitter @robgilmour (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Rob Stokes

Rob Stokes is the founder and Group CEO of Quirk eMarketing, Africa’s largest full service online marketing agency. Quirk was founded in 1999 as Rob was nearing the end of his Marketing Honours Degree at the University of Cape Town. Today, he is the guiding force in an ever growing agency with a loyal client Base that includes big names like Google, Woolworths and Capitec Bank. Quirk is headquartered in Cape Town, with offices in Johannesburg and London.

Rob is driven by his love of technology and constant search for innovative and fresh ideas. A regular local and international speaker, Rob has entertained audiences in many countries, sharing his knowledge and expertise on a wide array of eMarketing topics. He is also the co-author of the Quirk textbook – eMarketing: the essential guide to online marketing. Licensed under the Creative Commons, the textbook is used by marketing students at universities all over the world. To download a free copy of the book, visit www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook.

Find him on Twitter @robstokes (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Russell Atkins

Director - Thumbtribe Mobile Solutions

Russell has been active in the online media and advertising industries for over 15 years and is a director at mobile solutions provider Thumbtribe, heading up its media related business.

Originally introducing the Mobizines application to the SA Market in 2006, Thumbtribe offers brands the means to develop a mobile web presence, gain audience and commercialise their inventory via its media and advertising network. It has built mobile services for a wide range of top local brands, including Samsung Mobile, CAR, Getaway, FHM, heat, M-Net, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, SA Sports Illustrated and YOU magazine.

Thumbtribe has been an active driver of the South African mobile industry- creating a leading local Mobile directory, the Best of the Mobile Web, available at Thumbtribe.mobi and via a range of other top mobile channels. The Best of the Mobile Web helps consumers discover quality Web content, optimised for mobile phones.

Prior to joining Thumbtribe, Russell spent six years within online publishing group 24.com- most recently as General Manager: Mobile where he was responsible for establishing and running its mobile division and driving new product development. Previous roles included heading up marketing for the 24.com group as well as involvement in other start up projects. Russell moved into the online media industry in 1999, overseeing marketing for the iafrica.com portal after time spent at advertising group TBWA Hunt Lascaris in strategic planning and account management roles.

Russell has a BA degree in English and Psychology from UCT, and a post-graduate diploma in advertising and marketing.

Find him on Twitter @russatkins (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Sarah Blake

Sarah Blake is the head of Optimisation at Quirk eMarketing. Sarah has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and she lectures at UCT in eMarketing. Sarah compiled the Quirk textbook - eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Online Marketing, and is an author of Kotler's Principles of Marketing: Global and Southern African Perspectives.. She has worked with clients across a number of industries, including MWEB, South African Tourism, Sun International and Warner Brothers. Sarah started in the world of online with Firebox.com, a leading UK online retailer based in London, and has worked with world renowned paid search firm Clicks2Customers.

Find her on Twitter @quirkemarketing (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Sheraan Amod

Sheraan is the co-founder and CEO of Personera, a personalized print platform integrated with Facebook that serves both consumer and business to business markets.

After acquiring venture investment and launching in November 2009 with a world-first product, Personera has received a significant amount of international attention, including features by TechCrunch, Facebook and Xerox. The company is also a winner of the Enablis Launchpad, Top Technology 100 and Cape Town Entrepreneurship competitions.

Sheraan is passionate about technology, startups, and Internet culture. He is also the Curator of Cape Town Startup Digest, an edition of the weekly events list for entrepreneurs started in Silicon Valley that has since become a global phenomenon. He enjoys traveling extensively, with a recent highlight being the chance to attend the legendary Facebook f8 summit in San Francisco.

Find him on Twitter @sheraan (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Siyabonga Madyibi

Director, Regulatory Affairs at Internet Solutions

Siyabonga Madyibi has over 10 years' experience in telecommunications regulations and has worked in various capacities within the sector. Siyabonga is a Lawyer by profession but he cut his teeth in telecommunications at ICASA the industry regulator for broadcasting and telecommunications in 1999 when he joined as a Legal Manager. He was soon promoted to the position of Head of Department for Legal and Regulatory Affairs reporting to the Council of ICASA and the CEO. During his tenure at ICASA he also had a concurrent position as Project Director for the licensing process of the SNO and now Neotel.

In July 1993 he joined MTN as a Senior Regulatory Advisor where he was mainly responsible for giving strategic direction and advice on regulatory risk and opportunities in Africa, Middle East and in SA. In December 2004 he joined Internet Solutions (IS) a division of Dimension Data as a Regulatory Executive and was later appointed as one of its Directors. He has overall responsibility on regulatory matters that relate to both Dimension Data and IS and he also sits on the Board of Dimension Data SA.

Siyabonga Madyibi holds a junior degree from UCT where he studied BA - Law and a senior degree from University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg) where he obtained an LLB Degree.

Stafford Masie

Stafford Masie has been in the IT industry for more than 15 years and has assumed numerous roles throughout his career. He worked for numerous companies, namely; Telkom, and Dimension Data

Thereafter Stafford started his own consulting and engineering services company which was later acquired. Looking for further challenges he then joined a multinational enterprise software company called Novell and after 9 months in South Africa he moved to the USA where he spent 6 and a half years working at their corporate head office in Utah.

Stafford was responsible for global partnerships and corporate technology strategy and had responsibility for numerous international territories - namely; Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuala), Middle East, Sub Saharan Africa and Southern Europe.

Stafford played a significant role in the open source software arena in the USA and returned to South Africa in December 2003 to assume the role of country manager for Novell South Africa. Stafford was the CEO for Google Africa and Sub Sahara.

Being in this position and more than qualified as a talent on this subject, Stafford made a conscious decision to begin speaking in order to reach as many people as possible. Stafford's presentation and workshops range from discussing the impact that technology is having in societies, cultures and history to disclosing present day and short term technological trends.

His remarks and demonstrations always intrigue the audience, giving them a thorough understanding of what exactly is happening "out there", how to take advantage of it, and what to watch out for and always leaving them in awe. His target audience is everyone: the technology geeks will find it insightful and the non-IT folks will finally get an understanding of it all and where it's all going.

Versus sticking to particular topics or categories of subject matter, Stafford prefers to tailor his content per client and per vertical business sector; this simply to ensure greater relevance and value to the audience, with the most impact.

Besides being a technology and renewable energy enthusiast, Stafford is equally passionate about flying Microlights and single prop aircraft whenever he can...besides diving and skiing when the weather permits.

Find him on Twitter @staffordmasie (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Stefan Magdalinski

Stefan Magdalinski is the CEO of Mocality.com, a new mobile business directory (and a lot more to come) providing services to thousands of entrepreneurs across Africa. Mocality’s first city is Nairobi, Kenya.

Previously, he was CTO of MOO.com, the innovative digital printing company, but has been building web applications and online civic hacks since 1994, mostly in startups, as a founder of: UpMyStreet, the ground-breaking web1.0 location-based information source and community; WriteToThem.com (formerly faxyourmp.com); TheyWorkForYou.com, an activist created re-implementation of Hansard, the UK's parliamentary record; The Open Rights Group (www.openrightsgroup.org).

In his spare time, he wonders why he doesn't have any.

Find him on Twitter @smagdali (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Stephan Ekbergh

Stephan Ekbergh is a former professional DJ and seasoned travel industry veteran. A solid entrepreneur and visionary by heart, he has worked and invested in a number of travel companies and digital media businesses.

In 1997 he founded Mr Jet, Scandinavia's first transactional online travel company, before launching the TravelStart portfolio in 1999 - a business he later successfully expanded internationally. In 2006 Travelstart South Africa was launched, as the country's first online travel agency and current market leaders.

In early 2010 Ekbergh sold the entire European arm of his business and in the nearest future will focus on emerging markets. Ekbergh’s passion is to contribute to establishing e-commerce in Africa and the Middle East, a continent he feels in many ways has been neglected by other major players.

Ekbergh is a regular speaker on the travel industry circuit and writes his own blog, Epic Business Life and Love Stories. He lives in Cape Town with his wife and four children since 2005.

Find him on Twitter @Ekbergh (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Steve Song

As the Telecommunications Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, Steve Song looks for ways to drive down the cost of communications infrastructure in South Africa and raise awareness of the potential impact of affordable infrastructure on social and economic growth. Steve worked at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for ten years before joining the Shuttleworth Foundation. At the IDRC he led the Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) research programme in Africa.

He has worked in the area of ICTs and development since 1991 and was involved in the early development of the Internet for the non-profit community in South Africa. He has traveled extensively in Africa including making a solo trip from Cape Town to Cairo by motorcycle.

Find him on Twitter @stevesong (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Steve Vosloo

Steve Vosloo is the fellow for 21st Century Learning at the Shuttleworth Foundation. He firmly believes that mobile phones, games and digital media are the future of Africa's education. Steve currently leads the m4lit (mobiles for literacy) project, which has demonstrated the enormous potential of mobile publishing to support teen reading and writing in South Africa.

In 2007 Steve was a research fellow at Stanford University, where he researched youth and digital media.

He lives in Sea Point, Cape Town, and walks on the promenade every morning.

Find him on Twitter @stevevosloo (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Tayo Oviosu

Founder & CEO Pagatech Tayo has over twelve years of experience in a variety of technical and business roles in High-tech and Private Equity. Tayo founded Pagatech in April 2009 with a strong belief that the mobile phone can be leveraged to reduce Africa’s dependency on cash and expand financial access to millions. Pagatech is launching its mobile payments service, Paga, in Nigeria in Q4 2010 and has plans to expand Paga beyond the Nigerian market.

Prior to starting Pagatech, Tayo was Vice President at Travant Capital Partners in Lagos,Nigeria. At Travant, Tayo was responsible for executing the firm’s investment strategy in West Africa. Prior to joining Travant, Tayo was a Manager, Corporate Development, at Cisco Systems in San Jose California. In that role, he was responsible for strategy, acquisitions, and private equity investments in four technology sectors - Virtual Computing, Application Networking, Security, and Network Management. Tayo helped lead Cisco’s investment expansion in Africa and led numerous acquisition and private equity investment opportunities. These include the $130m acquisition of Reactivity, and investments in Aquantia (10G Base-T, Series A), and Guardium (Database Security, Series C, sold to IBM). Tayo was also responsible for the private sale of 22% of Cisco’s South African operations to a consortium of investors. Tayo represented Cisco on the boards of Guardium and Credant Technologies (a Mobile Security start-up).

Prior to Cisco, Tayo was a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in the CRM and Technology practice. Tayo also worked at Biomorphic VLSI as a Semiconductor Chip Design Engineer and Event411 as a Software Engineer, two start-ups based in Los Angeles California.

Tayo earned his Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, cum laude, from the University of Southern California. He also has a Masters in Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

Find him on Twitter @oviosu (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Toby Shapshak

Toby Shapshak is the editor of Stuff magazine and a columnist for The Times newspaper. He has been the Mail & Guardian's technology (three times) and sports editor (twice), ran the M&G website when it was the first news site in Africa, covered the Truth Commission and shadowed Nelson Mandela when he was president.

A former senior newspaper reporter covering everything from crime to politics he has been writing about technology, the internet and the impact it has on our lives for more than 10 years ago for a number of newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Times, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, ThisDay, The Financial Mail and The Weekender. He broke the Hansie Cronje "the devil made me do it story" for the M&G.

In 2009 Shapshak, who was the ICT Journalist of the Year for 2002, was named in GQ's top 30 men in media and the M&G's 300 influential young South Africans list.

He was a contributing editor and Joburg bureaux chief for GQ magazine for nearly ten years and was digital publisher of media giant Avusa’s magazine division, for whom he launched Stuff in 2007. He is a contributing editor to Business Day’s Wanted magazine.

He continues to run his own company, Maven Media, where he has managed major website projects and published numerous magazines for blue chip clients. These include Nokia, FirstRand Group, MultiChoice, Microsoft, Internet Solutions, Accenture, Absa Bank, Edgars, Incredible Connection and Netstar. Maven Media have also managed the official host country World Summit on Sustainable Development website for South Africa and redesigned the entire Standard Bank website's content, including several other divisions.

Tom Van den Berckt

Tom Van den Berckt is Clicks2Customers’ most senior search specialist with several years of experience running PPC campaigns for large clients on five different continents.

Tom has a background in engineering  and holds three Masters’ degrees from three different universities.

His current responsibilities include devising performance-based digital marketing strategies for clients, auditing of PPC campaigns and training.

Tom is also a part time lecturer at TSIBA, a  Cape Town tertiary education provider“

Walter Pike

A right brained marketing maven.

After a period as head of faculty: marketing and advertising, 2010 saw him launching two new businesses. PiKE | The new marketing agency and the Digital Academy. The former to make sense of brands in an always on, always connected world, the latter to train the people who would operate in this world.

His background is in leading advertising agencies, marketing, academia and consulting.

Never shy to speak his mind you can hear him on his weekly segment on Radio, as a conference and professional speaker, follow him on twitter and read his blog, PiKE’s Thinking...

Find him on Twitter @walterpike (Hover over the link to the left for more options)

Wesley Lynch

Wesley Lynch holds a decade of experience in the financial, business and software development industries, and is deeply involved in producing innovative technology solutions for African and international businesses. Fuelled by a passion for software and problem-solving, Wesley founded Realmdigital in 1999 after gaining a wealth of technology and business experience working in the European financial and retail sector.

Realmdigital is a software solutions company that empowers clients to conduct business fluently and effectively online, by offering technology and e-business consultancy. Wesley has been instrumental in ensuring Realmdigital’s credence as an elite software partner with expertise in web, mobile and business integration. Today the company has an international client base servicing customers such as Naspers, South African Airways (SAA), Avusa, Exclusive Books, Brandhouse, iKapa Tours, Hip2b2 and Vodacom.

Wesley’s leisure and recreational passion is travel - which he enjoys with his chef wife, Sam and their two children.

Find him on Twitter @wesleylynch (Hover over the link to the left for more options)