Ugan is an experienced technology strategist and technopreneur. He is passionate about 4IR technologies and the positive impact it can have on business and society. Schooled in the art of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, his skills are expansive including strategy, technology leadership, people management and financial management.
Prior to founding FIRtech, Ugan spent most of his career in the corporate sector – working across industries including petrochemicals, mining, manufacturing, retail, transportation, and logistics. In his last corporate stint, he had expanded the footprint of a local South African technology business to 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America – using an M&A growth strategy. Prior to this, Ugan had an integral role in starting and growing Africa’s largest ERP system integrator.
Ugan’s educational background is in Engineering, IT, Corporate Finance and Business Management.

Daniel Wertheimer is data scientist and machine learning engineer within the Data Solutions team at Absa. Liaising with the business and engineering teams, he continues to deliver valuable solutions across the Absa Bank Group. Alongside his day job, Daniel aims to educate and discuss data science through his website and social media with a focus on driving equality, fairness and inclusivity within the community.

Kamila Hankiewicz is a Managing Director of Untrite, a company applying latest AI technology and NLP to help corporations make better use of data they already have. Untrite CoreAI is an engine which can pull in the data from silos and understand the links and relevance between them. 
Kamila is a vivid advocate for diversity and empowering women in technology; she co-founded NGO Girls in Tech London and Poland. The local chapter has an active member base of more than 9 000 people, with more than 125 000 globally.
Some of the events Kamila organised include: a series of Startup F*ckups events interviewing prominent CEOs such as Dr. Ali Parsa of Babylon, Tom Blomfield of Monzo, Hiroki Takeuchi of GoCardless, Catalyst Conference (TED style talks), Demo Day (female-led startup competition), Getting Into Tech workshops showcasing a variety of different roles available in technology.

Kamila's past life includes working as a Management Consultant with a focus on banking, where she was involved in £1.65bn digital transformation project for two of the largest international banks.

Anand is an entrepreneur, award-winning
author, innovator, speaker, futurist, and
highly sought after thought leader.
He helps people adapt, leverage
technology, and transform with the
power of creativity and innovation.
Anand specializes in areas that intersect
with technology and people.
He is a creativity, innovation,
entrepreneurship, and transformation
specialist and is well-known for bringing
ideas & strategies to life.
Being a polymath, Anand can often shed
new light on a topic you think is "done to
death."
Having worked with several Fortune 500
multinationals for the past two decades,
he has cross-industry and multi-cultural
experience.

Shaun Dippnall is the co-founder and CEO of EXPLORE Group, a portfolio of data science businesses that deliver
a combination of projects, consulting and skills to both South Africa and global businesses in an inclusive,
innovative and creative way.
Dippnall, who calls himself “part academic, part actuary and part entrepreneur,” studied actuarial science at
UCT and first worked as a business analyst at McKinsey and Company before taking up a lecturing post in
actuarial science at the University of KwaZulu Natal.
Then it was back into the world of business as Chief Actuary of the Nedbank insurance portfolio, where he cut
his teeth as team leader in product development, valuation, capital modelling, experience investigations,
analytics and strategy. Then came a similar position as Chief Actuary for Vodacom's insurance businesses.
His first CEO position came when he was appointed head of the disruptive on-line life assurance company Viva
Life Assurance, but the allure of pure data science, then an exciting and emerging force in business across the
world, took him into Telkom, where he was appointed Chief Data Scientist. There his responsibilities included
delivering Big Data and Data Science solutions across the Telkom Group, using the latest data science tools
and platforms.
The Dippnall trifecta of “actuary, academic and entrepreneur” came into full bloom in 2017, when he, together
with Aidan Helmbold and Dave Strugnell, created the EXPLORE Data Science Academy. The EDSA started off
by training 100 new data scientists through a fully-sponsored one-year data learnership programme in its first
year.
Since then, EXPLORE has gone from strength to strength, each year increasing the number of students taking
its flagship one-year course so that today some three years later it has trained 1000 plus data scientist. But, as
Dippnall explains, the number of different areas of the broad data science universe, the Academy has become
involved in has expanded exponentially.
“We're reinventing (data science) education in South Africa. The universities have courses that are outdated,
cumbersome and not all that practical. At EXPLORE we teach the tools, skills and technologies that will matter
in the future. And we're teaching them in new, better ways. We have an amazing technology platform, crazy
talented scientists and a passion to make a difference in our country.
We teach data science, software engineering, data engineering and analytics translation. We offer long courses,
short courses, classroom and on-line courses. We offer companies bespoke in-house courses that include
boot-camps for senior executives and line managers as well as specific upgrade courses for existing data
science employees. Now we are expanding our reach outside the country. We believe that we can offer courses
that can compete with anyone in the world.”
Dippnall is honest about his role as an entrepreneur. “To be a good entrepreneur you have to be a little batcrazy! You need blind belief in what you are doing and tons of perseverance. Entrepreneurship is less about
‘smart’ and more about ‘heart’. South Africa has a long history of successful entrepreneurial ventures. We just
need to have creativity, self-belief and a supportive environment. At EDSA we’re building a next generation
Higher Learning institution for our country. That’s not easy. Only a bunch of crazy people would try that.”
The Dippnalls have three children and Shaun gets particularly animated when he talks about parenting. “I have
three children in this world, three little hearts with wide eyes, big dreams and deep laughs. “Parenting is about
learning how to be young again. We were all children, bursting with crazy, beautiful ideas. We were all artists
with giant paintbrushes splashing streaks of fun on the world in front of us. Looking at my children, I am learning
to be joyful. I watch them experimenting, tripping, falling, learning, growing and I learn more from them every
day.”

Alistair’s purpose is to focus on human-centred design for problem solving that enables exponential positive change.

Alistair has led finance and business functions in both the private and public sectors, at a senior level over the past 20 years. During that time he has steered multiple project engagements, ranging from designing and implementing new large-scale group reporting systems and processes to designing multi-country system solutions and methodologies.

His focus area for the past 10 years has been on the Financial Services industry, around business and operating model transformation related to technologies, processes, people, culture and data - working with clients in South Africa, Africa, UK, Continental Europe, the United States and Latin America.

He is skilled in strategic transformation and building new business capabilities, using cognitive technologies and innovation techniques and has led high performing, multi-disciplinary teams in the ideation, design, development, and execution of impactful, innovative and human-centric portfolios. Alistair was a top finalist out of 300 nominees across PwC Africa's staff complement of 9000+ people for the PwC Africa Values Award.

Alistair has founded 2 companies – one focused on exponential transformation using cognitive technologies and innovation, and the other is  focused on genomics, genome sequencing and creating machine learning digital assets to reduce clinical trial costs and failure rates.

He currently devotes the majority of his time helping clients achieve their technology enabled business transformation objectives and provide clients with support across their innovation and digital transformation initiatives.

Alistair holds an Executive Master of Science from HEC Paris and various post-graduate professional certifications from Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School, Yonsei University and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business – with specialisations in disruptive innovation, competitive strategy, design thinking, deep learning for business and digital transformation.

He is a speaker, author and thought leader on Cognitive and Intelligent Automation.

NYARADZAI (NYARI) SAMUSHONGA
Chartered accountant, internationally-recognised entrepreneur and businesses leader with a successful career as an innovative thinker, driven by a passion for training young people across Africa.
Business leader
Nyari is CEO of WeThinkCode_ (WTC_), a technology startup in South Africa that trains and equips high potential, previously disadvantaged students with world-class digital skills through a tuition-free programme. Her leadership role involves creating long-term growth strategies and directing the team of professionals driving the academy’s operations.
To enable the scale and sustainability of WTC_ she has driven the diversification of the funding lines to create a balanced portfolio of corporate sponsorship and grants from international foundations.
Entrepreneur, innovator and change-agent
At WTC_, she has overseen the design, build and implementation of a custom e-learning platform and training curriculum. She continues to pioneer innovative student sourcing channels to recruit a diverse pool of talented youth that are not usually represented within the software development sector.
Prior to WTC, Nyari co-founded FoldLeft, a digital consultancy that uses hypothesis-driven models to design and deliver software solutions to enterprises. The core focus of this work was to deliver digital transformation pathways in the financial services sector. International profile
As a thought leader, Nyari has been a keynote speaker at international conferences delivering talks on digital transformation, building high performing software teams and driving alternative training models to democratise tech education.
In her capacity as the Managing Director of ThoughtWorks Africa, a global software consultancy, she sat on the organisations Global Council, a body of business leaders from 14 countries, that designed the company’s global strategy, adapting it to evolving business demands.
Passion for Africa
Nyari’s commitment to the continent is expressed through the vision of WeThinkCode_ to train Africa’s next generation of top tech talent and drive the digitisation of African business through increased accessibility to tech training for African students with no prior software development experience.
Under Nyari’s guidance, WTC_ launched WomenThinkCode_, an initiative aimed at achieving gender parity in tech education. She also co-founded the Johannesburg chapter of the San Francisco-based Black Girls Code that teaches young female students from townships how to code.
Qualifications
Honours, Bachelor of Accounting (University of South Africa), CA(Z) (Institute of Chartered Accountants, Zimbabwe), CPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants).

Dr. Ansgar Koene is Global AI Ethics and Regulatory Leader at EY (Ernst & Young) where he contributes to the work on AI governance, trusted AI frameworks and AI related public policy engagement. As part of this work, he represents EY on the OECD Network for Experts on AI (ONE.AI) and the Business at OECD Committee on Digital Economic Policy (BIAC CDEP).
He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Horizon Digital Economy Research institute (University of Nottingham) where he contributes to the policy impact and public engagement activities of the institute and the ReEnTrust and UnBias projects.
Ansgar chairs the IEEE Computer Society AI Standards Committee and the IEEE P7003 Standard for Algorithmic Bias Considerations working group, and led the IEEE Ethics Certification Program from AI Systems working group on Bias. Other standards development work includes participation in the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC42 AI and the CEN-CENELEC Focus Group for AI.
He is a trustee for the 5Rgiths foundation for the Rights of Young People Online and is part of the 5Rights Digital Futures Committee.
Ansgar has a multi-disciplinary research background, having worked and published on topics ranging from Policy and Governance of Algorithmic Systems (AI), data-privacy, AI Ethics, AI Standards, bio-inspired Robotics, AI and Computational Neuroscience to experimental Human Behaviour/Perception studies. He holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Computational Neuroscience.

Chris is a tech enthusiast who is passionate about finding cutting edge and innovative solutions to business problems. He has worked for a number of top-tier Advisory firms as a management consultant. A significant portion of his work experience focused on Data Analytics, AI & Data Governance.

He holds an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), Bachelor of Business Administration (Information Systems) and a Management Accounting qualification with CIMA (UK). His broad qualifications and experience have given him versatility which has become a key strength to navigate the unique and rapidly changing characteristics of the business environment.

Chris is a public speaker who is passionate about imparting knowledge and sharing on how to bring the 4th Industrial Revolution from theory into the practical. His talks are designed to provoke insightful discussion about how our world is changing and what part we all have to play in this future.

Dr Mark Nasila ,is the Chief Analytics Officer of FNB Risk. As an experienced data science and analytics expert, he has ensured that the techniques and methodologies that he has introduced into FNB are at the forefront of where banking is headed both locally and internationally. Some of his CAREER HIGHLIGHTS & AWARDS include: Developer and the brain behind Manila, an AI system FNB has been harnessing to reimagine its risk management and forensic due diligence processes, which was also featured as part of the Corinuim's top 25 Global 2020 data and analytics industry greatest achievements, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and plans for the future. Dr Nasila is recognised locally and internationally as a leading force in the development of new and up and coming techniques and methodologies, within the highly competitive areas of AI, data science and Machine learning. Dr Nasila has presented at local and international conferences such as the Business-Tech Digital Banking Conference - South Africa; the Chief Data & Analytics Officer forums in the South Africa and the UK and the European Simulation & Modelling Conference. Dr Nasila has published and written opinion pieces for the Daily Maverick, ITWeb, Corinium Intelligence and the European Simulation & Modelling association.

Mark holds a PhD in Mathematical Statistics from the Nelson Mandela University – South Africa, and is also a SingularityU South Africa Executive programme alumni. He was named one of the Corinium Global Intelligence "2020 Global Top 100 Innovators in data and analytics".

Alessandro is the founder and director of Lightblue Cognitive Solutions, an Intelligent Augmentation, Automation and Advanced Analytics solutions provider.

Before founding Lightblue Cognitive Solutions, he led IBM Consulting’s Artificial Intelligence practice across Middle East & Africa and prior to that headed up IBM Consulting’s Advanced Analytics practice for Southern Africa.

He has over twenty-five years’ experience in information technology services consulting ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Analytics to large complex Digital Transformations.

Artificial Intelligence enthusiast. Conference speaker, author. Software Quality Engineering professional.

Johan is a business development specialist who has been selling technology products and services in South Africa and in Europe over the last 20 years. During the last decade, his focus turned to the Software Quality Assurance and Testing market. He worked in senior roles for global consulting firms, and at one of the largest banks in South Africa. He is an Artificial Intelligence enthusiast and speaks globally on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Emerging Technologies. 

He is currently with IQBusiness, a management consulting firm.