Conference Section

Speakers
  SPEAKERS
 

Confirmed keynote speakers

Jonathan Ortmans

Jessica Flannery

Alieu Conteh

Euvin Naidoo

Kenneth P. Morse

Steve Brown


Jonathan Ortmans serves as president of the Public Forum Institute, an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating the most advanced and effective means of fostering public discourse on major issues of the day. A current focus of the Public Forum Institute's work concerns the economy where Jonathan serves as an interface between new research and initiatives to better understand entrepreneurship and the questions and concerns that arise from policymakers in the nation's capital. In this context, Ortmans oversees the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship (PDE), an initiative to advance public understanding of the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship and the economy and human welfare. Through meetings, forums, use of available research and communications tools, PDE helps policymakers make sound public policy decisions to encourage entrepreneurship, job creation and economic growth. Ortmans has also led the development of Global Entrepreneurship Week an initiative piloted in the United States in 2007 that inspires the under-30 generation to explore their entrepreneurial potential in more than 75 countries. He also serves as a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation where he has advised the Foundation on its emerging global prominence and has helped develop partnerships and programs with international leaders. In this capacity, he has worked to help advance new thinking about the role of entrepreneurialism within a nation's economy and culture and its power to address global problems. Previously, Ortmans served as a congressional aide to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means; executive director of the Columbia Institute for Political Research; and, has founded three businesses. Educated in England, Ortmans serves as an advisor on public engagement and outreach initiatives to several government agencies and foundations, and devotes considerable time to moderating and facilitating meetings worldwide.


Jessica Flannery is a co-founder of Kiva.org, the world's first peer-to-peer online microlending website. Kiva lets internet users lend as little as $25 to specific developing world entrepreneurs, providing affordable capital to help them start or expand a small business. Kiva has been one of the fastest-growing social benefit websites in history, connecting hundreds of thousands of people through lending across over 120 countries. Jessica first saw the power and beauty of microfinance while working in rural Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda with Village Enterprise Fund and Project Baobab on impact evaluation and program development. Jessica is sector-agnostic about social change, and has worked for public, nonprofit, and private organizations including the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Amazon.com, Potentia Media, the International Foundation, World Vision, and others. Jessica's work with Kiva has been featured in a wide array of media and press including Oprah, the Today Show, CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, the WSJ, NYTimes, the Economist, and more. Jessica speaks widely on microfinance and social entrepreneurship, and serves as a director on several boards related to microenterprise development, including Opportunity International. Jessica holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business with Certificates in Global Management and Public Management, and a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Bucknell University. Jessica is a trained yoga instructor, avid surfer, and poet.


Alieu Conteh, 57, 25 years an entrepreneur, is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Congolese Wireless Networks, the first GSM cellular provider in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Born in Gambia, Mr. Conteh’s story begins in the 1980’s when, after a business and law education in London and California, he became a commodity trader in the London coffee, tin and gold markets. In 1986 he received the first cable TV license in DRC which he built into a successful business. Then in 1997 seeing the potentials of cellular communication and its limited implementation in the DRC, he fought against civil war, corruption and technical difficulties while investing his savings. He successfully negotiated the first GSM license in 1997 and lunched the network in 1999. In 2001 Vodacom purchased 51% of his network and today they serve 2 million customers and provide affordable coverage nationwide. Today Mr. Conteh continues to invest in the African wireless infrastructure as well as is back in the trading business with his latest venture, Kanuma Resources, which is seeking to establish import links with Thailand. He is married with four children and currently lives in Johannesburg.


Euvin Naidoo is the US based President & CEO of the South Africa Chamber of Commerce in America (SACCA) and visiting international lecturer, Private Equity & Customer Service (Service Operations), at the WITS Business School, one of Africa's leading MBA programs. With the former, he launched the Africa Entrepreneurship Platform, focused on helping scale that segment of entrepreneurs who work with local communities, into new markets. This program has been featured at the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative’s annual gathering and most recently has been honored by being acknowledged by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as strengthening ties between the USA, New York City and emerging markets. As an investment banker at Standard Corporate & Investment Bank, having served in both the Johannesburg and New York offices, Euvin has worked with private equity players, multilateral organizations and partner banks on emerging market acquisitions across several sectors (retail; transport; financial services; FMCG; healthcare and mining). A former consultant at McKinsey & Co., in Johannesburg, South Africa, his 4 year tenure at McKinsey had him engage some of the world's leading multinationals as well as corporations doing business specifically across emerging markets. He was the opening speaker at TED Global 2007, focusing on capital market developments across Africa, and was a keynote speaker at the 2007 Wharton Africa Conference in Philadelphia, emphasizing the role of SMEs and entrepreneurship in Africa. Both speeches received international acclaim for reframing the challenges Africa faces as potential opportunities for the informed investor. Mr. Naidoo graduated summa cum laude from the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa, with majors in Law and Politics. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. Profiled in Forbes.com, he has been described in this publication in an article focused on African entrepreneurship as 'a leading advocate for Western investment in the… continent'. He is a Fellow of the Emerging Leaders Program, aimed at mentoring the next generation of U.S. and African leaders working to make a positive impact on society across the globe. Euvin currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife Dr. Roshini Moodley Naidoo and their 2 children.


Kenneth P. Morse, serial entrepreneur and Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Ken Morse is a serial entrepreneur, having played a key role in launching several high-tech start-ups, including 3Com Corporation, Aspen Technology, an expert systems company, and a biotech firm. Ken's batting average is 0.833: five of his start-ups went public or were successfully merged; one was a complete disaster. As head of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, Ken is responsible for inspiring, training, and coaching new generations of entrepreneurs from all parts of MIT. Ken has been profiled and quoted in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Economist, and Red Herring. Since Ken joined the MIT Entrepreneurship Center in 1996, the number of students taking Entrepreneurship Courses has increased from 220 to 1,500 per year while the number of professors and lecturers has grown from two to thirty. He has raised $ 20+ million endowment for the E-Center. Ken was named "Education All Star" by Mass High Tech magazine. Ken serves as an advisor to China Capital Ventures, LLC, Darby Overseas Investments, Ltd., PolyTechnos Venture-Partners GmbH, and SINTEF A/S. He has been an instructor in sales at the Munich Entrepreneur Academy for several years and has taught a global sales strategies workshop in several European cities. Ken, an American, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Cercle Royal Gaulois Artistique & Litteraire (Brussels), and the Quissett Yacht Club. He speaks fluent French and some Chinese. Concurrent with his MIT duties, Ken holds the Chair in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Competitiveness in the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at the Delft Technical University. When he is not helping young companies to succeed, Ken enjoys sailing his wooden boat with his family around Cape Cod.


Steve Brown founded Innovate4Growth Consulting, i4Gc, which identifies barriers to commercialization in regions and organizations using the Innovation Assessment Grid™, Venture Pipeline Analysis, VPA™ and Cost of Innovation Analysis, COI™ and suggests ways for individuals and commercialization teams to enhance their effectiveness by creating Micro Clusters for Innovation, MCI™. Steve has spent most of his career directly involved in the management of new products, business development and commercialization activities. Previous to founding i4Gc he worked for the MIT Technology Licensing Office in the chemicals, materials, bioPharma, and medical devices areas. He worked with over 100 successful U.S. technology based startups during his career at MIT, either as the Licensing Officer who negotiated their license, as the Licensing Office Ambassador who provided them with advice and contacts, as a judge in MIT’s 100K Entrepreneurship Contest, or as an evaluator of their funding proposals to the Deshpande Proof of Concept Fund. He has also worked with groups representing over fifteen different countries interested in best practices for regional economic development in addition to some US cities, universities, and regional economic development agencies. His most extensive international engagement was working with the University of Cambridge Technology Transfer Office in Cambridge, England, on university technology commercialization practices. Prior to joining M.I.T. in 1996, Steve was the Assistant Dean for External Partnerships at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at University of Pennsylvania. There he was responsible for helping the departments create their strategic plans and for building relationships with external organizations important to the school’s educational and research mission. At Arco Chemical, Steve was a Commercial Development Manager with responsibility for a commercialization team that developed a composites program from lab inception to approval by two major auto manufacturers. Previously he revamped Arco’s National Distributor Sales Program. Earlier in his career he worked for Dow Chemical in a variety of research, development, sales, marketing, and business management positions. In 1979, Steve was selected to be a President's Executive Interchange Executive and served at the Small Business Administration where he helped to streamline their bank loan process, revise their energy loan program for high technology startups, and lobbied for the agency before the US Congress. Steve received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Princeton University. Prior to Princeton he attended Oundle School in England as an English Speaking Union Exchange Scholar after having graduated from Tabor Academy in Marion, MA where he received the general excellence in scholarship award.



Confirmed panelists

Julia Long

James Jardella

Mohammad Asfour

Allon Raiz

David Clark-Murphy

Antoinette Matthews

Gideon Maas

Joseph Brenyah

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen

Bleming Nekati

Alicia Polak

Dmitry Repin

Richard Kivel

Gary Palin

Lewdmila Pavlova

Carlo Gonzaga

Hein Koen

Andre Sharpe

Rama Rao

Xiao Chen Low

Yaw Owusu

Torsten Kolind

Mansoor Mohamed

Kerrin Myres

Joseph Brenyah

Jamil Goheer

Iqbal Meer Sharma

Eric M.K Osiakwan

Ankit Garg

Rob Dennison

Manoj Mishra

Daria Ustyuzhanina

Andri Heidar Kristinsson

Paschal Iwuh




Julia Long, CEO, HBD Venture Capital. Julia Long has been with HBD since it was established in September 2000 and, as a founding member, supported in the setting up of the organisation. She is the CEO of HBD Venture Capital, is a member of HBD's investment committee and is a non-executive director on a number of HBD's investments. Julia’s career has spanned a number of industries including hospitality, financial services and human resources. It was during this time that Julia discovered a true passion for IT which led her to study for a B. Tech in Information Technology. Julia also has an Honours Degree in Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management from UCT. After completing this she took up the role of leading the development team at Thawte - a digital certification authority. During her time at Thawte, Julia established the WOT (web of trust) concept, assisted in building the architecture for the system, brought structured project management and facilitation between development and marketing departments and acted as a notary (a role she still performs today). After the sale of Thawte to a US consortium, Verisign, Julia supported in the set up of HBD Venture Capital, establishing it as one of the few venture capital companies focused on funding early stage businesses in South Africa. She initially played a key role on the investment team of HBD’s first venture capital fund, HBD Fund1, which focussed on start up businesses. She was then promoted to CEO of HBD in 2006 and led the company’s strategic shift from start up to early stage companies through the launch of HBD Fund2. Julia leads a dynamic and driven team which counts among its key successes, the profitable sale of one of HBD’s investments, Red Five Labs, as well as discovering and investing in a range of exceptional early stage South African businesses. These include moyo, a contemporary African hospitality brand, OrderTalk, developers of sophisticated online ordering software, EDH, radar tracking technology pioneers and Csense, the creators of highly sensitive trouble-shooting software. HBD has also been instrumental in pioneering the venture capital concept in South Africa. Julia's passion remains information technology, but she has expanded her business expertise to include developing business strategies, negotiation, mentoring of entrepreneurs as well as general and financial management. In addition, Julia launched concepts such as the Big Idea, and is a trustee of the Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organisation that supports innovation in education in South Africa and a director of BSquare Communications, which, through the Hip2b2 brand, aims to inspire young South Africans to embrace their education, specifically in maths, science and technology. Julia is passionate about her family and friends. She has a wide range of interests that keep her energised.


James Jardella, Founder and Co-Director of Travellingbug Ltd, launched the company in 2006 to provide a new way for skilled, independent people to volunteer around the world. The service it provides enables volunteers to apply their value to help those in real need. Founded on the principle that a person with time and skills to offer, should not be held back by the cost of volunteering through profiteering schemes, the company has placed volunteers in varying roles with charities in Bolivia and Uganda. Travellingbug won the Most Innovative Start-up Company at the Knowledge West Enterprise Awards in 2007, participated in the HSBC Financial Literacy Conference 2007 in New York, and was a SIFE UK National Competition Finalist in 2008. James runs the company with the voluntary support fellow students in the social-entrepreneurship group SIFE Bath, and is currently studying for his Master’s degree in Medical Engineering at the University of Bath.


Allon Raiz is the founder and CEO of Raizcorp, the only privately-held, unfunded, profitable business incubator on the African continent. He is an author, a radio show host, and has written and hosted a primetime reality TV show, all in the field of entrepreneurship. He is an accomplished international speaker and is completing a Doctorate in Entrepreneurial Studies and Innovation. Allon's passion and focus on the development of entrepreneurs attracted the attention of the World Economic Forum which, on 11 March 2008, awarded Allon as a Young Global Leader.


David Clark-Murphy. David's PhD is in Management Psychology focusing on managerial decision making performance. David has taught Marketing, Management, Business Research, Managerial Finance and Entrepreneurship at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Australia, China, Malaysia, and Singapore. He was awarded Business Faculty prize for excellence in teaching in 2000; he mentored Australia's Young Businessperson of the Year in 2002; and managed the Entrepreneurship semi-finalists team in the 2004 Global Business Competition; and was short-listed for the award of Best Entrepreneurial Educator of the Year 2006. Panel member of Ch 31 program "Marketing - Does Sex Sell"? Keynote Speaker at the Inaugural National Business Congress in Perth 2006, and the 2005 International Business Conference in Hawaii.


Gideon Maas, Co-Director Institute of Applied Entrepreneurship at Coventry University, UK. Gideon has broad international business and academic experiences. Before joining Coventry University September 2007, he was the owner-manager of his own consulting company, GEB Consultants, which focused on entrepreneurship and family businesses and more specifically on innovation and growth strategies. Leading up to this he was the first International Chair in Entrepreneurship in South Africa, which was a joint venture between two South African institutions and an Irish university. Gideon also worked in various other organisations over the past years, such as the Stellenbosch University Business School in South Africa and the First National Development Corporation in Namibia. He was the principal researcher and author of the 2006 and 2007 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Reports for South Africa. On a macro level, he contributed to many national strategic development initiatives in South Africa such as the Small Enterprise Development Agency of which he was a board member. He is one of the founders and past president of the Academic Entrepreneurship Society of Southern Africa (AcES) and was the regional representative of FFI (Family Firm Institute) in Southern Africa. He was also an Associate Professor at the University of Limerick in Ireland. He obtained his PhD from Stellenbosch University, which focused on creativity in small and medium sized organisations.


Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen is the Chairman and CEO of Vestergaard Frandsen, a leading innovator, manufacturer and exporter of disease control textiles founded in 1957. Mikkel’s interest in developing nations began when he was 19 years old. He moved to Africa and started a truck importing business in Lagos, Nigeria until he was forced to leave following a military coup. He has also lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya, and New Delhi, India. Mikkel returned to Denmark in 1992 and joined his family’s company, then a local and traditional textile production company. Witness to the devastating effects of poor public health in Africa and India, Mikkel realized the urgent need for disease control methods in developing countries. In 1997, he convinced his father to sell off the work clothing business and focus solely on the humanitarian textiles business. In 1997 Mikkel became majority shareholder and under his leadership, the company’s profile has evolved to become one synonymous with social responsibility which he defines as reinvesting profits into innovative technologies that help curb the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria as well as generating employment in local markets. Mikkel and the company have been profiled in major publications around the world including The New York Times, Forbes, Financial Times, Le Monde, Die Welt, Politiken and Denmark's leading business magazine BNY. Mikkel has also appeared as a guest on national television, including CNN International, BBC and MSNBC. Mikkel holds an MBA from Henley Management College in England. He is a member of the private sector delegation to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and joins working groups under the Roll Back Malaria partnership. He is regularly invited to speak at major public health and corporate social responsibility conferences around the world, and has addressed the Belgian and British Parliaments. Mikkel lives in Lausanne, Switzerland.


Bleming Nekati. Bleming currently holds the position of Director of Business Development at Tshwane University of Technology. Bleming possesses very strong entrepreneurship skills, having been involved in starting up a minimum of three successful Strategic Business Units from scratch over the most recent 8 years of his working career. He has more than 13 years of Retail & Investment Banking, Financial Advisory and Business Management Consulting Experience acquired within the African Continent. This experience spans across Structured Trade Finance, Deal Making & new Business Development, Project Management, Business Process Reengineering and Corporate Finance; and covers assignments for both large/listed Corporations as well as SME’s in countries such as Nigeria, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, covering the following sectors; Manufacturing, Gold Mining, Pharmaceuticals, Agribusiness and Retail. Bleming holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Zimbabwe, an Advanced Credit Diploma from the Institute Of Bankers in South Africa, Certificate in Structured Trade Finance from Afreximbank, Tunisia, and is an Associate of the Institute of Banking - South Africa {CAIB (SA)}. He also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Leadership and a Masters in Business Leadership (MBL) from the University of South Africa (UNISA).


Alicia Polak is the dynamic founder of The Khaya Cookie Company, an innovative business with a social objective. A former investment banker turned social entrepreneur, the New Jersey native has created a forward-thinking business model that allows her to fulfill a personal commitment to better the lives of the residents in her adopted home of South Africa. In 2006, in collaboration with the Wharton Societal Wealth Program, Alicia founded the Khaya Cookie Company. The endeavor utilizes the entrepreneurial and analytical skills that she gained on Wall Street to expand on her venture for social change. For every 150,000 boxes of cookies sold, 100 jobs are created that support sustainable opportunities and job skills training for the men and women of the local community where the ingredients are sourced and the cookies are made. Prior to establishing The Khaya Cookie Company, Alicia worked as an international consultant specializing in logistics and project management for the Freeplay Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa. Distributing wind-up radios in Sub-Saharan Africa brought her to the realization that she wanted to create jobs for people as a means to make them self-sufficient. Alicia earned an MBA/MPA from New York University and The University of Cape Town, South Africa. She earned her BA from New York University in 1991. Alicia and her work have been featured in CNN Headline News "Small & Global" and in publications such as The Financial Times, Glamour (South Africa), O, the Oprah Magazine (South Africa), and Business 2.0. She received the Food Network Awards 2007 Edible Entrepreneur of the Year award for her "passionate pursuit of bright ideas."


Dmitry Repin is currently a Professor of Finance and the Head of the Business Incubator at the State University - Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. Dmitry is a founder of eXtrepreneurship -- an innovative entrepreneurship educational program that takes place abord a sailboat in different parts of the world. Dmitry is the lead organizer of the Business of Innovation and Technology entrepreneurial competition (BIT), the fist entrepreneurial competition in Russia that brings together students and researchers from leading technical universities and economics schools in Russia. Dmitry is also a co-founder and an instructor of the Microsoft-sponsored technology entrepreneurship program Start-in-Garage in Russia. Dmitry has a PhD in Cognitive and Neural Systems from Boston University and Dipl. Eng. in engineering and physics from Moscow State Engineering and Physics Institute. He was a Postdoctoral Associate with the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering at Sloan School of Management.


Richard Kivel is a serial entrepreneur and seasoned life science & technology executive. Since April 2006 he has served as CEO of TheraGenetics, Ltd, a UK-based genetic diagnostics company focusing on the development and commercialization of pharmacogenetic diagnostic tests to guide and improve the treatment of Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders such as depression, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, Bipolar and ADHD. In January TheraGenetics was successfully acquired by UK based Avacta Group plc. LSE: (AVCT). Rich has remained as CEO and continues to lead the growth of TheraGenetics under the new ownership. Prior to this, Rich has worked with multiple startups and served as CEO of MolecularWare, Inc., a MIT spin-out and leader in genomic and proteomic microarray technologies. Under his leadership, MolecularWare secured venture capital and debt funding. In June, 2003, the company was acquired by a California based company, CalbaTech, Inc. in a cash & stock transaction. Rich presently serves as Chairman of the Global Board of Directors of the MIT Enterprise Forum and a member of the MIT Alumni Association Board. Since 1997, Rich has worked with multiple MIT entrepreneurial support organizations and student-driven initiatives. He is a frequent guest lecturer at the Institute and serves as a judge for the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Rich also enjoys working with early stage technology through his involvement as a Lead Catalyst and Mentor for the MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. Rich has been active in many other entrepreneurial and membership organizations outside of MIT as well. He was a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) from 1996-2006 and is a founding board member of Biolink USA-Ireland, a government funded membership organization. He is also a mentor for the UK Trade and Investment Global Entrepreneurs Mentoring Program. Rich was selected by Mass High Tech: Journal of New England Technology for the “All Star” award for Biotechnology and by the Boston Business Journal as one of its “40-under-40”; top forty most promising business people under 40 in Massachusetts.


Gary Palin is the Executive Director of the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Elon University and a faculty member of the Love School of Business at Elon University. He brings a combination of 30 years experience in both the academic and business communities. He founded the Entrepreneurship Education Initiative at NC State in 1993 and served as the Executive Director until 2008. He was a faculty member of the NC State College of Management for 17 years. Palin’s areas of expertise include new venture development, social entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and venture growth. He is an active member of the MIT Global Startup Workshop Board of Advisors, a founding member of the Social Entrepreneurship and Education Consortium, founder of the Entrepreneurship and Education Network and a participant in the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers, Academy of Management, North Carolina Center for Entrepreneurial Development and the North Carolina Chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs. Palin has been named a recipient of the 2008 Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Award from the Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence. He has served as Director of NC State University’s Small Business Technology and Development Center where he assisted hundreds of business launches, expansions, and acquisitions. He has developed executive education programs in business planning, new venture launches, and technology commercialization. He has consulted for numerous entrepreneurial business ventures and also with major corporations such as Texas Instruments, FMC Corporation, and Thomas Register. Palin serves on a number of high growth company advisory boards and is currently involved in several business development projects.


Lewdmila Pavlova is currently the project manager and a founding member of the Business Incubator at the Moscow Higher School of Economics University from which she holds a BS in Economics and Finance. She was instrumental in building the now 15+ person team which organizes various entrepreneurship-supporting events, including business-plan competitions, business games, educational programs and workshops. She is currently responsible for a mentorship program which connects start-ups with experienced entrepreneurs and professionals. An entrepreneur herself, Lewdmila has founded several commercial and nonprofit projects in different spheres, including extreme tourism, historical dancing, art school, and card games. She is currently a founder of TimePad (http://timepad.ru) a web-service for event-management where her main responsibilities are business planning, marketing and hiring. At the same time she is completing her Master’s at the Moscow International College of Economics and Finance.


Carlo Gonzaga at 34 is the CEO of South African Taste Holdings. He has spent all his adult life doing what he enjoys and insists that he does not have a real job. This is unlikely, given that he and his team have grown from just one pizza delivery outlet in late 2000 to over 250 outlets across three brands; employing over 4500 people and generated system wide sales of over R570 million in 2008. The more pizza and hamburgers he eats the more he rides his mountain bike. Carlo graduated with a law degree from the University of Natal after which he joined his father Luigi in managing four Debonairs Pizza franchises in the Durban area, two of which were the chain’s top performers. Carlo was deeply involved in the early stages of operational development and served as Chairman of the SA Franchise council and was honored as Marketer of the Year and Franchisee of the Year. In 1991 Carlo divested Debonairs to launch Scooters Pizza in 2000 which guarantees superfast delivery and is today SA’s #2 brand. Carlo and Luigi’s Taste Holdings has just ventured out of the real of food and acquired the NWJ Jewelers franchised chain.


Hein Koen Habitaz was founded in 2004 by Andre Sharpe and Hein Koen. During their sabbatical business school studies, the partners recognized a need for office and business support services for start-ups and mobile workers. The result was Habitaz Global Workspaces, an innovative business support company providing leading edge virtual office and workspace services through a network of business centres, workspaces, meeting rooms and back-office support services. A major Habitaz innovation was the GreenCard, the world’s first pre-paid office access card. Adapting to the needs of mobile professionals and start-ups, Habitaz developed office and business support services to support fast setup of business infrastructure, enabling its clients to go to market in short time-frames. Habitaz was acquired in 2008 by The Regus Group, the world’s largest serviced office network. Hein Koen is a generalist businessman with a focus on marketing, customer relations and product development. His professional background includes Human Resource Management, Public Relations and Strategic Marketing and Corporate Communications. Hein is a co-founder of Habitaz Global Workspaces, an innovative business support company providing leading edge virtual office and workspace services through a network of business centres, workspaces, meeting rooms and back-office support services. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, he is fond of travel, cooking and taking his dogs to the beach.


Andre Sharpe. Habitaz was founded in 2004 by Andre Sharpe and Hein Koen. During their sabbatical business school studies, the partners recognized a need for office and business support services for start-ups and mobile workers. The result was Habitaz Global Workspaces, an innovative business support company providing leading edge virtual office and workspace services through a network of business centres, workspaces, meeting rooms and back-office support services. A major Habitaz innovation was the GreenCard, the world’s first pre-paid office access card. Adapting to the needs of mobile professionals and start-ups, Habitaz developed office and business support services to support fast setup of business infrastructure, enabling its clients to go to market in short time-frames. Habitaz was acquired in 2008 by The Regus Group, the world’s largest serviced office network. Andre Sharpe is an entrepreneur, business consultant and a self-taught software programmer. After military service in 1991 he joined a Johannesburg healthcare software company and in three years became a shareholder and technical Director while the company grew to be the biggest South African health insurance IT firm. He is a founder and was an executive director of the IQ Business Group which grew to be South Africa’s largest private IT consulting firm and was sold in 2003. In 2004 he co-founded Habitaz. Now Andre has founded nCube8 Business Ventures, a venture capital firm and small business incubator, and is currently completing his MBA at Wits Business School. Just to keep busy, he is writing his first science fiction novel and is a keen composer of classical and electronic music. Andre is married with two children and lives in Johannesburg.


Rama Rao, PhD in Botany from the University of Delhi (1980), was awarded the Indian National Science Academy's Young Scientist Medal by the Prime Minister. He taught and led a research group at the University of Delhi, and later moved to the private sector where he set up the largest plant tissue culture company in India. A paper presentation at a conference ended up with a career in international development with the International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC) where he became the International Coordinator of the IDRC Bamboo and Rattan Research Network in Asia in 1989. He was part of the team that set up what became the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) in 1997 as an international intergovernmental organization. Rama is currently the Director of INBAR's Livelihood and Economic Development Program. His aim is to develop bamboo as a means for poor rural communities to break into the wood products market that would then give them an important market in addition to that of traditional agriculture.


Xiao Chen Low is the Vice President of the NUS (National University of Singapore) Entrepreneurship Society, one of the top youth entrepreneurship organizations in Singapore. She leads a dynamic and passionate team of more than 100 undergraduates and has been instrumental in spearheading numerous entrepreneurial initiatives such as the NUS Entrepreneurship Week and Technopreneurs' Boot Camp. She is also the Vice Lead of Start-Up@Singpore, the nation-wide business plan competition. Since its inception, the competition has attracted over 1700 teams, 6000 participants and resulted in the creation of more than 60 start-ups. In the next few years, she hopes to start her own business and continue to play an active role in shaping Singapore's entrepreneurship ecosystem.


Yaw Owusu founded Ghana Cyber Group in 1999 to promote technology investments in Ghana. In 2004, Mr. Owusu co-authored the book Modernising Commonwealth Governments, published by the Commonwealth Business Publications, London, England and available on Amazon. The book, among others, outlines the role of technology parks and incubation in transforming Africa's IT economy. Mr. Owusu founded Gateway Innovations Ltd in 2006. The company finalized a joint-ventured deal in 2007 with the Institute of Industrial Research and the Washington-based Xalles Ltd to develop Ghana Cyber City, the first technology park in West Africa. Mr. Owusu has presented papers on tech and innovation in emerging African markets at business summits in the last 6 years, including the 11th MIT Global Startup Workshop, Madrid, Spain; the 8th Annual Africa Business Conference at Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Shanghai Workshop on Planning, Developing and Managing Technology Parks in China. Mr. Owusu worked in Washington, DC for General Electric and IBM as programmer analyst for 5 years and moved to New York to join the technology unit of Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Division. He enrolled in the Executive MBA program at Columbia Business School 2001-2002 and completed his undergraduate studies in Mathematics and Economics at Albright College in Reading, PA.


Torsten Kolind used to run Venture Cup in Denmark, the national business plan competition for Danish universities. Now he works for YouNoodle in San Francisco, a social platform for entrepreneurship groups and business plan competitions all over the world. Torsten has a biotechnology engineering background from the Technical University of Denmark.


Mansoor Mohamed is South African born and bred and an experienced Chartered Accountant. He was appointed to the City of Cape Town in 2006 after returning from London, where he managed a recycling business. Prior to that, Mansoor worked in financial services in London where he held various management positions in the corporate headquarters of a FTSE100 corporation. He completed his articles with Arthur Andersen & Co in Cape Town and soon thereafter played a key role in listing Old Mutual on the London Stock Exchange. Some of Mansoor’s achievements include the development of a 'skype' phone in London and China for use on laptops. He is passionate about the environment, and has previously been involved in sourcing second generation wind turbines from Denmark for reassembly in rural communities in Albania, Eastern Europe. Mansoor Mohamed holds a B.Comm degree, an Honours B Compt from UNISA and a CA (SA) qualification, and is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants. His preferred leisure activities are spending time with his family and cooking.


Kerrin Myres is the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Wits Business School. Prior to this she was the founder and CEO of Resonance, a research-based consultancy established in 1997 which today specialises in the design and evaluation of entrepreneurial development programmes. Kerrin has designed, implemented and evaluated programmes for Enablis, THM and YPO’s Johannesburg Chapter. She also established the Richard Branson School of Entrepreneurship at CIDA City Campus. Her prior work experience includes consulting and line management positions in a range of businesses in South Africa and Australasia. Kerrin has recently completed a DBA at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria. Her thesis title is “Venture creation: developing theory from South African case studies”. She graduated from Macquarie University with an MBA in 1991, winning the Allan Knott Scholar Award for Academic Excellence. Kerrin lectures in Marketing, Strategy and Entrepreneurship and has presented papers at a wide variety of conferences, including that of the prestigious Strategic Management Society. She has published articles on marketing and strategy in numerous South African and Australian publications. Kerrin has been married to Hugh for over 20 years and has one son, Benjamin.


Joseph Brenyah, H.N.D. (Ind. Chem.), Dip. (French), A.A (Theology), Dip. (Ind. Mgt.), Dip. (Project Mgt.). An experienced administrator, clergyman and consultant of high standing in the industrial, mining, agricultural and social philanthropy/entrepreneurship sectors. He has attended and, at times, organized a lot of local and international seminars, workshops, conferences and training programmes in management, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, small-scale industrial technologies, co-operatives and social entrepreneurship and is computer literate. Between 1994 and 2003, he headed four companies and consulting firms in Nigeria and Ghana. He is presently in charge of Christian Volunteer Service International, a non-governmental organization and Moringa Oleifera Farms and Industries Limited, a social enterprise/venture. He set up the Preventive AIDS Lifeline Micro-credit Strategy (PALMS) and the United Network Against HIV/AIDS in Africa (UNAHA) in 2004 to help stem the tide of the pandemic in Ghana and Africa. In 2007, he initiated the Ghana Malnutrition Annihilation Program (Ghana MAP) to combat malnutrition quickly by encouraging people to resort to a balanced diet especially with Moringa, a powerhouse of essential nutrients. In the same year, he started the Rural Agricultural Improvement Network (RAIN), a network of small holder farmers, farmer and community based organizations/associations, research institutions and civil society organizations in agriculture, which included the Moringa Oleifera Cultivation and Marketing Program (MOCAMP), to assist in rural agricultural development and industrialization. Other social programs initiated by him in 2008, include: Village Information Technology Initiative (VITI) and Biofuels & Biogas Initiative in Ghana (B-BIG).


Jamil Goheer is passionate about technology entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and research in the area of Internet governance. During his career, he shaped ideas, built teams, developed strategies, executed plans, shared vision, identified believers and formed corporate networks. He holds an undergrad degree in software and a graduate degree in information systems and management. His portfolio is spanned over different projects with organizations like Nike Inc, United Nations Development Program, GTZ, Canadian International Development Agency, Responsible Business Initiative to name a few. He also worked as a pioneer researcher with Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (www.crulp.org) where his work in speech and signal processing was credited in international conference and journal publications. He is also a certified information system auditor (CISA) by Information Systems and Control Association (ISACA). He was extensively involved in auditing IT and management infrastructures of various manufacturing organizations in Pakistan. Jamil’s entrepreneurial initiatives included Alivox, Kualitatem and Cultural Classics. Alivox focused on cutting edge speech technology to automatically identify languages upon receiving speech signal. Kualitatem was founded as the first company in Pakistan (www.kualitatem.com) to provide comprehensive Software Quality Assurance services under one platform. Multiple testing services are provided through innovative and cost effective open source frameworks and tools. These value added services provides significant improvement to the client’s software at low costs, while avoiding the heavy licensing costs of proprietary QA software. Kualitatem’s award winning team from APICTA and PASHA is poised to bring innovation in the area of Software Quality Assurance through their research collaborations with top academic institutes. Cultural Classics (www.culturalclassics.com) is a drive to serve the underprivileged rural and gypsy artisan communities in Pakistan creating a sustainable flow of income for them. These artisans are often hard to reach and ignored segment of communities with a talent and skill of producing handicrafts. CC offer income generation opportunities for these artisans by bringing their handmade crafts onto the global markets using the power of Internet. The work on Cultural Classics has been acknowledged by Global Knowledge Partnership, Malaysia and Australian Government. Jamil’s strengths include developing upon ideas, building capacity, structuring cohesive and confident teams and creating linkages and interdependencies between organizations to supplement skill sets. Using technology as an implementation lever, Jamil aims at development problems in developing countries by discovering answers, solutions or even more complex questions.


Iqbal Meer Sharma is the Deputy Director General: Trade and Investment, in South Africa’s Department of Trade & Industry (dti). An economist, he leads the dti in managing the increase of South Africa’s capability and capacity to promote exports into targeted markets and; to increase and retain the level of direct investment flow; He was responsible for SA's global economic strategies, and leading the dti in managing bilateral trade relations with all countries, whilst also providing oversight to multilateral engagements, specifically the WTO. Prior to joining the DTI, he worked for large multinationals such as PepsiCo and the Bank of America. But, an entrepreneur at heart, he left to set up and run his own companies, including South Africa’s first computer education franchise and a software firm. He has been hailed as “one of South Africa’s most remarkable entrepreneurs” (SA Success Magazine 4/98). The Financial Mail has also recognised him as one of South Africa’s top 400 black professionals. An activist committed to the upliftment of rural and poor communities, he has worked with NGO’s and published many articles and papers on social, political and economic issues.


Eric M.K Osiakwan is the Executive Secretary both of the African Internet Service Providers Association (AfrISPA, www.afrispa.org) and the Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA, www.gispa.org.gh). He is also a Visiting Fellow and Scholar at the Stanford University and Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Program @ http://rdvp.org/fellows/2004-2005/erik-osiakwan/, Project Co-ordinator for UC Berkeley TIER Group in Ghana @ http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu and affiliate of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School @ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu. During the past five years, he has been involved in a number of information and communication technology (ICT) related projects and initiatives in the US, Europe and Africa for a number of Governments, companies, NGOs, and international agencies. He is currently a Consultant to the WorldBank’s Information for Development program on Open Access for Africa (InfoDev, www.infodev.org). He is also a consultant to BusyInternet (www.busyinternet.com), UNDP Ghana and OSIWA (www.osiwa.org). Eric was invited by the Royal African Society to contributed ideas to Prime Minister Tony Blairs’ Commission for Africa @ http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/consultation/bob_geldofs_seminars/african-letters/Eric_Osiakwan.pdf. He self published a research document on Ghana’s Internet Industry (GII). Co-authored “The Internet in Ghana” with the Mosaic group using the GDI methodology @ http://www.fosterandbrahm.com/GhanaGDI.pdf and also co-authored the Ghana chapter of Negotiating The Net (NTN) – the Politics of Internet Diffusion in Africa @ http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/ntn/ghana/ghana_7-01-04.doc. He is an associate of Spintrack AB, Sweden (www.spintrack.com), Balancing Act, UK (www.balancingact-africa.com) and African Analysis CC, S.A (www.africaanalysis.co.za). He is also a director of InHand ltd (www.inhand.co.ke) and PenPlusBytes (www.penplusbytes.net). He co-founded the Ghana New Ventures Competition (GNVC, www.gnvc.org).


Ankit Garg is a second year student at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta). He is currently the President of the Entrepreneurship Cell at IIM Calcutta and the Overall Coordinator of India's Largest Entrepreneurship Summit- 'i2I' (ideas to implementation). He has also represented IIM Calcutta at many entrepreneurship related conferences across the country. Ankit is an Electronics and Communication Engineer and has worked at Infosys Technologies Ltd. – a global Software and Consulting firm, prior to joining IIM Calcutta.


Rob Dennison is the founder and Managing Director of Trainiac SA (Pty) Ltd, specialist designers of picture-based learning solutions for the corporate market. He built the company in 2001 from scratch and it has since grown to a team of learning experts operating in South Africa (80%) and beyond. Clients have included 5 out of the top 15 Global Fortune 500 companies and many SA Top 100 Companies. Previous to this, he was the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at WinWin Technologies Inc, a Boston based technology company with funding from venture capital financiers led by GE Capital. He grew the team to over 100 people working out of 5 offices on three continents. Robert was elected Endeavor Entrepreneur Class of 2007. He is also the Forum Chair and Communication Chair Elect for the Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) (Johannesburg Chapter). Outside of work, Robert participates in mountain biking, club motor sports, equity investments, reading and poker.


Manoj Mishra is a faculty at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, where he heads the Centre for Micro Enterprise, Micro Finance & Sustainable Livelihoods. He has had 14 years of experience in providing support to various national and international projects in the area of project management, diagnostic studies, pre-feasibility assessment and planning and implementation of programmes in the area of sustainable livelihoods, Micro-enterprises (particularly farm and off-farm sector), Micro-finance, Agri-business and Business Development Services for MSMEs.


Daria Ustyuzhanina is a Project Manager at Business Incubator of State University - Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia and a CEO of start-up TimePad (http://timepad.ru, a web-service for event-managers which simplifies the process of event organization). Within Business Incubator her responsibilities are to manage organization of annually Business Plan Competition, to invent and conduct new forms of socializing and educating events for entrepreneurs, to coach new team members and to manage the project of e-learning.
As for Daria’s duties in the start-up TimePad, she performs general administration functions and is responsible for the interaction with sponsors. She got involved in this start-up after more than a year of work for the Incubator as she desired to have her own business and she encountered people who were passionate to develop that very idea.
Daria has a BS degree in Business-Informatics from SU Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia and now she continues education on Master’s program “Development of corporate information systems”and is planning to go to France for the second year of Master’s.
During the first years of studying in the University Daria participated in a teambuilding program for students supported by the Moscow Government. During this program she was chosen to be a teambuilding coach and had an opportunity to enhance coach skills by means of coaching groups of students from 10 to 30 people, helping them to grow as individuality. Meanwhile she adores mountain skiing and snowboarding both and she put on skis about 30 friends. Daria goes in for most of team activities (volleyball, hiking, canoeing and even football sometimes) as it’s a great pleasure for her to communicate with people and try to understand them via the behavior in sports activity. When she has a spare moment Daria enjoys painting, making sketches of peoples’ emotions.


Andri Heidar Kristinsson is the founder and Managing Director of Innovit Entrepreneurship Center in Iceland and a part time faculty member of the University of Reykjavik. In the effort of building up a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in Iceland, Andri and his team at Innovit launched a nationawide business plan competition for all Icelandic universities, currently the only one in the country. At the University of Reykjavik Andri is teaching Innovation and Entrepreneurship and working on a strategy for creating a world class entrepreneurial environment. In 2007 Andri was appointed by the Prime Minister to work in a committee under the Icelandic Science and Technology Policy Council to develop Iceland‘s 2020 vision in business development and innovation. Recently he was appointed by the Minister of industry to work in a steering group that is creating the government action plan for reinforcing entrepreneurship and job creation amongst young people in responce to the current economic situation in Iceland. Andri has a background in computer engineering and financial economics from the University of Iceland. Outside of work, Andri enjoys travelling, spending time in the nature, hiking and mountain climbing in addition of having been active in sabre fencing for over fifteen years and being the national champion in 2003.



EPC Judges

Allon Raiz

Brian Carl Brown

Torsten Kolind

Julia Long

Alicia Polak




Brian Carl Brown is the COO of Blue Catalyst and owner of zzyyzzo Group. Brian is an American Citizen permanently residing in the Republic of South Africa since 2002. He has over 25 years commercial business experience and four tertiary specialties including, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration and Philosophy from the United States. With a diverse entrepreneurial history ranging from information technology to construction and real estate to professional services and consulting, Brian has spent the last 6 years as a pioneer in the SMME development and incubation industry in South Africa.
An innovation and technology enthusiast, Brian is constantly scanning for the next disruptive technology whether it be in nanotechnology, biotechnology or a new web phenomenon.
Brian believes that innovative technology ideas have little value if not catalysed with the actions of committed entrepreneurs supported in an environment where funding, expertise and markets are readily available. “If you can’t sell one, there is no sense in trying to make one. Most ideas have a negative net present value!” Brian is Chief Operating Officer of the Blue Catalyst Network and is currently an innovator in web 2.0 and social networking as it applies to economic development, incubation and SMME support.


Paschal Iwuh, President & CEO of The African Network (TAN), Inc, USA . Iwuh is a co-founder of TAN and served as its Director of Public Relations and Communication till April 2006. Iwuh co-chaired TAN's inaugural successful conference, TANCon, held in 2006 in Silicon Valley , California . He led the Sponsorship & Affiliation Committee until he became the President and Chief Executive Officer effective January 1, 2008 . Prior to the above appointments, Iwuh was the Vice President of Crumbs Reliability Engineering, LLC from 2004 to 2005 and still serves on her board. He worked as a senior engineer and served in various leadership positions for some pharmaceutical and bio-technological companies and now consults for same in the Northern California Bay Area, USA . Iwuh holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering (first in his class) from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; a Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary; was a graduate visiting scholar to the school of Chemical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; a Business Administration Certificate (with Distinction) from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD Candidate (2009 Class) in Organization & Management (with specialization in Leadership) from Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, USA.