Elan Lohmann quit his corporate job and set out to change the lives of 100 000 people two years ago. He has grown the SleekGeek social health and fitness community from 10 to 25000 members to date, and is well on track to achieving his goal. He will be sharing his personal story with the Tech4Africa audience, he says.

“I’m going to be telling the story of how I built this brand using digital platforms with no real budget, doing it from my bedroom and creating something from nothing. In that there’s the story of a whole bunch of people whose lives are affected – as well as the story of my life transitioning from a corporate to being an entrepreneur.

“I’m going to be talking about authenticity and the importance of it in the social media space,” he conitnues. “I’m also going to talk about what real community is. We use the term quite loosely. People also use the word ‘value’ for the customer like its jargon but I really believe the secret is giving people what they want and what they need.”

In amongst that, he adds, he’ll be talking about intent and social entrepreneurship – and how your intent is linked to your results.

Lohman has been off the corporate speaking circuit for a while, he says, and was invited to speak at Tech4Africa by founder Gareth Knight – Lohman inspired him to lose a lot of weight and he decided Lohman’s story needed some airtime.

“I’m not giving people a social media lesson,” Lohman adds, “all I can say is what I did and why I think it worked and people can take from that whatever they will.”