Net Prophet 2010 - celebrating African digital innovation

Just how connected is South Africa and Africa? And what are we doing with these online capabilities? Can we teach the world a thing or two about innovation? And what does a company need to do to tap into this opportunity? Attend Net Prophet 2010 to find out.

Net Prophet is back, with registration for the second annual event opening on Wednesday, 17 March 2010. This year the conference, hosted by the RAMP Foundation, has a strong focus on digital innovation in Africa, as well as building a globally competitive IT economy in South Africa.

This year’s Prophets, speaking at the event, include Erik Hersman (Ushahidi, Afrigadget, TED Fellow – AKA ‘White African’) talking about innovation and technology in Africa, Vinny Lingham (yola, Clicks2Customers) talking about building global technology start-ups, and Stuart Ntlathi from the Stuart Ntlathi Institute of Science and Technology explaining why it is so important to encourage previously disadvantaged South Africans to choose technology as a career path.

In addition, World Wide Worx’s Arthur Goldstuck will be a returning Prophet and share his latest online trends and stats with the Net Prophet attendees. Arthur will be releasing World Wide Worx’s latest connectivity statistics, with a close look at the mobile Internet – perhaps even bursting a few bubbles here. He will also chat about strategies needed to succeed in the mobile Internet space, and share some valuable lessons about how today’s youth are acquiring digital skills.

Stephen Newton of Google South Africa & Sarah Lacy from internationally acclaimed tech news site, Tech Crunch, will also participating in a panel focussing on international web trends.

Net Prophet 2010 is a one-day conference based on free, open source knowledge sharing where Internet experts and successful entrepreneurs provide insights, data, sound business advice, and practical ways to turn knowledge into profits. One of last year’s Prophets, Mike Stopforth from Cerebra, described the 2009 event as “how conferences in SA should be run.” The event is definitely not just for geeks and should be attended by anyone wanting to tap into the power of the Internet to grow their business.

“The opportunities that the Internet provides in South Africa and Africa for businesses are simply too important to ignore,” said Tim Price, marketing manager for the RAMP Group. “This year’s event is a celebration of digital success in Africa, and also intends to empower delegates with the knowledge to go and create new success stories, and become our future Net Prophets.”

This year the conference is supported by Old Mutual as platinum sponsor, and will take place in the Old Mutual Business School, in Pinelands, Cape Town on 13 May 2010. The conference is free to attendee, but delegates must register on www.netprophet.org.za from Wednesday 17 March 2010.

“Free access to enabling knowledge is the true killer app. As platinum sponsor of Net Prophet 2010 we are proud to be associated with an event that makes it possible,” said Jack Kruger, head of digital at Old Mutual.

Included in the speaker/contributer line-up are:

Arthur Goldstuck – World Wide Worx

Stephen Newton – Google

Sarah Lacy – Tech Crunch

Erik Hersman – Ushahidi, AfriGadget, TED Fellow

Patrick Kayton – Bright Sparks & Cognician

Vinny Lingham – yola, Clicks2Customers, Lingham Capital

Stefan Magdalinski – moo.com & Mocality

Richard Mulholland – Missing Link & Thunk!

Stuart Ntlathi – Stuart Ntlathi Institute of Science and Technology

Adii Rockstar – WooThemes

Event details: Net Prophet 2010

Date: Thursday, 13 May 2010

Time: 8 am – 5 pm

Venue: Old Mutual Business School, Jan Smuts Drive, Pinelands, Cape Town

Booking details: Free to attend, but delegates must register at www.netprophet.org.za. Regrettably you will not be allowed access to the conference if you haven’t registered.