Digital innovators to star at 2012 Flux Trend Review

If you want to meaningfully participate in the world you, never mind change it, you need to know what forces are driving shaping it.

Anyone who’s still has doubts about how digital online technologies are changing the way we function as human beings need only look at the speaker list for this year’s Flux Trends Review, set to take place on 7 June in Johannesburg.

The annual event claims to cherry-pick “the best thought leaders to provide a 360-degree look at the hotspots of change, emerging trends globally and in South Africa allowing business to short-cut the process of sifting through vast amounts of information and focus on relevant strategy.”

Out of the 10 speakers, at lest six will be addressing topics directly related to the tech sphere:

Unpacking e-commerce in developing markets and the challenges of bridging the gap between online and offline retail is the New York based President of Estee Lauder Companies online Dennis McEniry. McEniry helped build ELC Online’s presence from five sites in the U.S., to over 300 sites in more than 50 countries, and the business continues to grow. Under Dennis’s leadership as President, the ELC Online division has become the fastest growing channel of sales in the Company, and a major contributor of bottom-line profit. McEniry has also held positions at Time Inc. (Vice President of Technology) and at IBM in the Global Services division.

Nozipho Mngomezulu, a partner in Webber Wentzel’s technology, media, telecommunications and intellectual property practice will explore whether the free flow of information can — and should — be controlled: The digital future in South Africa clearly lies in cell phone internet access, and there is a complex landscape to navigate with regards who owns what information.

The techno-savvy minds of Arthur Goldstuck of Word Wide Worx and Adrian Lee, Mobile Content Lead for, Samsung Electronics South Africa’s Content and Apps team, will be outlining the future of mobile technology and applications in a world where “websites are so last century”.

Christo Davel, CEO of 22seven, the recently launched new-generation money management tool will explore our complex relationship with money. A firm believer in behavioural economics Davel asserts that the global financial crisis is, in fact, a symptom of the average person’s problematic psychological relationship with money

After learning a thing or two about showbiz as a rock ‘n roll roadie for bands such as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, Rich Mulholland started Missing Link, SA’s largest presentation firm, and co-founded 21Tanks, the country’s first perspective lab. Richard will be talking about popular culture exploring how our lives have been altered by technology and what the trajectory of this might be.

The other speakers include South Africa’s unnoficial Twitter king Khaya Dlanga, City Press editor Ferial Hafajee, Mokena Makeka, who sits on the World Economic Forum’s global agenda council for design and Dion Chang, who runs Flux Trends — the think tank behind the event.

According to Chang:

“The year 2012 is proving to be a significant threshold of change – changes Flux has been tracking for the last two to three years. Tried-and-tested templates of doing business are proving obsolete — or just inappropriate for a rapidly changing world — and this is happening across all industries”.

Anyone interested in attending the conference can book by email, or by visiting the Flux Trends site.