Now in its third year, Tech4Africa is a premier mobile, web and emerging technology event held in Johannesburg on October 31-November 1 at The Indaba Hotel, Gauteng.
The theme is “Unlocking the next billion consumers” and sessions will be focused around mobile and content, the enterprise opportunity, entrepreneurship and financing, social business and innovation.
The Developer Day and Hackathon on the kick off day includes three tracks: a day on Agile software development, a Hackathon with sessions on Ruby on Rails, Python, Raspberry Pi, PhP etc., as well as workshops for social media marketers on apps ecosystem and monetization.
Keynote speakers include IBM’s Tom Rosemalia and Ralph Simon of Mobilium, with other speakers being Amolo Ng’weno, MD of Digital Divide Data in Kenya; Neal Ford, Director, Software Architect and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks; Vérone Mankou, CEO of Way-C in the Democratic Republic of Congo; Emma Kaye, CEO of Bozza, Josh Adler, social entrepreneur and others.
IBM’s Global Entrepreneurship Programme has been brought into the Tech4Africa 2012 agenda and Claudia Fan Munce, Managing Director at IBM Venture Capital Group, will introduce GEP and an award programme. Tech4Africa 2012 will also be running Ignite again – a start-up workshop and pitching competition, which is being run by AngelHub and Deloitte.
A Google G+ Hangout will be held live at the conference so that tech hubs from around Africa can be part of the conference and so that delegates can interact with a panel, asking questions and finding out more about what is happening on the ground in Senegal, Liberia, Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt, Kenya, Congo and other parts of Africa.
Disclosure: we are a media partner of the event.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
