Month: July 2011

5 reasons why Tech4Africa 2011 is the technology event of the year

As we start the second half of 2011, the technology landscape is changing at such a pace that the need to be current and timely is greater than ever.  It’s clear that mobile reach will be far greater than the PC, and that apps will be the deciding factor for the market winning device or platform.

It’s not quite the hysteria of 1999, but we are starting to reach a tipping point where most of the worlds population that could be online, are.  Perhaps more importantly, the benefit of this connectedness is felt even more in Africa where people who did not have a voice, now do.  With that as the foundational plumbing, the usefulness and immediacy of mobile will drive more and more people to consume services, utilise data, and engage socially, which then drives demand for cloud based services accessible anywhere and on any device.

Building on the success of Tech4Africa 2010, we’re back in October 2011, and even better! Our themes for this year are Mobile, Social and Cloud, and through listening to great feedback from the 2010 event, our schedule has changed somewhat to focus on fewer talks with deeper content, and expanded to include relevant events for the African tech industry. These are the highlights that make Tech4Africa 2011 the technology event of the year:

1 – Featuring Josh Spear and Herman Chinery-Hesse as keynote speakers, plus 8 more great international speakers.

2 – African speakers who are experts in their fields will share their experiences about developing tech businesses in Africa.

3 – The Trade Show runs through the duration of the conference, and is an ideal opportunity for African technology businesses to showcase their products and/or services in an environment of buyers, decision makers, journalists, tweeters, bloggers and potential recruits.

4 – Ignite is a startup competition, aimed at giving exposure to the hottest new startups, while introducing them to prospective investors, customers and the media.

5 – Presented to a single winner, the Innovation Award encourages innovation for solving uniquely African problems, whilst also encouraging global thinking.  The Award recognises that innovation can be entrepreneurial, as well as intrapreneurial, and so is open to anyone or any company.

It’s through these initiatives and more in the coming years, that we’re delivering on our objectives of Engage, Inspire, Enable, and Innovate. We hope that you can join us at the technology event of the year, running for two full days on the 27th & 28th October, at The Forum, in Bryanston, Johannesburg. To avoid disappointment, book your ticket now.

We’d love to follow you on Twitter too!  We’re @t4a

Calling all startups. Apply to Tech4Africa ‘Ignite’.

We’re proud to launch Ignite, an initiative that will provide leading African startups with the opportunity to pitch their products to a carefully curated panel of Angel investors, mentors and business leaders. Startups selected to partake in the Tech4africa Ignite pitches will be given five minutes to showcase their products, with the opportunity to gain not only potential investors but also invaluable exposure to the wider Tech4Africa audience of thought leaders, decision makers, journalists, influencers and potential recruits.
About the purpose of this event, Gareth Knight, MD of Tech4Africa, said: “Twitter, FourSquare and Gowalla ‘broke’ in the US market, through their pitch stand demonstrations at SxSw. Our DNA is: engage, inspire, enable and innovate and it is for this reason that we decided to launch Ignite to highlight amazing ideas and allow African startups to use Tech4Africa as a platform to enable them to gain valuable press exposure and early stage investment.”

Ignite takes place in the main auditorium at Tech4Africa, happening from 27 to 28 October 2011 at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg. The top 8 applicants will be required to demonstrate a working prototype of their early stage product to event attendees and a panel of judges. Whilst there is no formal prize, the winning startup will be announced on the second day of the conference and have the opportunity to present their innovation to the entire Tech4Africa audience. The winner will also receive valuable exposure and profiling through the Tech4Africa website and Tech4Africa.tv.

Interested startups should visit the Ignite page at the Tech4Africa site or get in touch using startups@t4a.feedmybeta.com. Deadline for submission is August 31, finalists will be announced in the first week of September.

The world-class line-up of technology evangelists presenting at Tech4Africa this year will provide South Africans the opportunity to learn about the role the web plays in African business and development. Keynote speakers include Josh Spear, one of the youngest and most respected digital marketing strategists in the world, and Herman Chinery-Hesse, commonly known as ‘The Bill Gates of Africa’. Spear and Chinery-Hesse join African and international thought leaders from organisations like Amazon, HP, Johns Hopkins University, Mozilla, SwiftRiver, the African Institution of Technology, Motribe, Clearleft, Ultinet Systems and many more.