Conferences

Tara Brabazon colonised the stage at the Gartner Symposium's Innovation ITXpo at Cape Town’s International Convention Centre on Monday with a passionate plea for us all to go on a "digital diet". The eccentric, flamboyant Australian academic is the Professor of Media at the University of Brighton in England, and spoke eloquently on “information obesity”, Google, and the problems of web searches in an educational environment. Brabazon began with a food analogy, citing a study that discovered how everybody makes ...

During a relaxed and informal panel discussion at the Tech4Africa conference in Johannesburg entitled “Building for the Global Market. Lessons and learnings from the coalface”, Leila Janah of Samasource, Sheraan Amod of Personera and Malcolm Hall of Open Box Software spoke about the challenges of building tech companies while being based in Africa. The discussion was facilitated by Toby Shapshak of Stuff magazine. ON BREAKING INTO THE AMERICAN MARKET Leila Janah: The biggest challenge we face is that Africa has ...

While aid programs in developing countries are ubiquitous, precious few empower the people they’re trying to help on a sustainable, ongoing basis. One that bucks this trend is Samasource, a non-profit based in San Francisco that distributes digital work from large US multinationals in manageable chunks to poor but educated workers in developing countries such as Kenya, Uganda, India, Pakistan and Haiti. Samasource workers do basic digital work required by US companies that American workers wouldn’t necessarily be willing to ...

With her own savings, support from friends, and the backing of a UK Government Grant, South African entrepreneur Barbara Mallinson founded Obami, a social networking site that’s been developed specifically for schools and to facilitate e-learning. Mallinson has since brought Obami back to South Africa to try and make a difference in the country she’s always called home. Memeburn.com caught up with her to talk online education and where it is all going. Memeburn: What are the major trends you are seeing ...

The landing of a series of undersea cables is going to solve an infrastructural problem that has long plagued Africa. However, in order for the continent to properly realise the full potential of a global customer base, African technologists need to expose themselves more to the insights and learrnings of the developed world, writes Gareth Knight, the MD of Technovated and founder of the Tech4Africa conference. New international submarine communication cables are starting to ring the continent, bringing with them the ...

After four years of trying to get it off the ground, the Tech4Africa web and emerging technology conference is all systems go for mid-August in Johannesburg. However, it hasn’t been a project without criticism or naysayers. Tech4Africa founder Gareth Knight explains rather candidly the need for the conference, its "no ties" policy, why they are looking to stir the pot, and why they’ve gone looking for speakers who aren’t necessarily on Twitter. Why are we doing TECH4AFRICA? Africans are natural innovators and entrepreneurs, and ...