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WEEKEND 2019
18 - 19 OCTOBER 2019 | UCT GSB CONFERENCE CENTRE
THE WORLD
The UCT GSB Alumni Relations department welcomes you to the 2019 Alumni Reunion. This annual event provides a platform where keen-world changers come together to re-unite and engage.
The theme this year is “The
World in 2050”. This year the
theme looks to the future, as
we explore possibilities of what
the next 50 years might hold.
What possibilities lies ahead
in 50 years? How can we and
our businesses benefit from
changes to come.
We thank you for your
presence today and look
forward to engaging in
fruitful discussions during the
networking session.
We now invite you to sit back,
relax and enjoy the programme.
-
UCT GSB Alumni Relations Department
- THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS -
DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE REUNION WEEKEND
Welcome to the annual UCT GSB Alumni
Reunion Weekend. We are delighted
to host you this year at our brand new
conference centre – a wonderful venue
that is enabling us to showcase the
UCT GSB’s exceptional and expanding
academic ecosystem and research
excellence to a global audience.
The opening of this new venue has
been one of several high points for the
school in 2019. The year started with
news that we successfully secured
EQUIS re-accreditation from the EFMD,
thereby cementing our status as one
of just 89 schools worldwide that have
triplecrown accreditation – an important
demonstration of our international
relevance and quality standards.
This year we also moved up in the
Financial Times Rankings for our
Customised Programmes and both our
MBA and EMBA have been recognised
as among the best in the world in
the QS Global Rankings. The school
also became the first in Africa to be
awarded Gold in the prestigious EFMD
Excellence in Practice Awards for a case
study on a development programme
co-designed with Standard Bank and
several case studies generated by our
UCT GSB Case Writing Centre have won
global awards in recent months.
You, our alumni community, are of course
a significant part of the reason why
the UCT GSB continues to thrive and,
though we are a small school, to make a
big impact on the world. I thank you for
taking time out of your busy lives to invest
in your connection with the school. The
great strength of an alumni community
lies in its ability to connect us.
We are always looking for ways to
strengthen our network and give
you more opportunities to connect
and grow and we have a fantastic
programme lined up for you this
weekend so please take part and enjoy!
Kosheek Sewchurran
Assoc. Prof and Interim Director of the UCT GSB
Fellow alumni,
It is with a deep sense of gratitude for our
school and everything it has given us that
I welcome you to the 2019 GSB Alumni
Reunion Weekend.
This decades-long annual tradition is the
GSB’s foremost alumni event, and its chief
objective is to add value to our school’s
greatest asset – the alumni network.
To that end, whilst I have no doubt that this
weekend’s lectures will make for insightful
learning, I would like to encourage you to
use this reunion as an opporunity to forge
new friendships whilst rekindling old ones.
Sincerely,
Kosta Kontos
MBA 2009/2010Alumni Board Chairperson
PROGRAMME
08:30 - 09:00 Registration and Refreshments
09:00 - 09:10 GSB Director Kosheek Sewchurran Welcome
09:10 - 09:12 Dr Tim London EMCEE
09:15 - 09:45
Dylan Piatti Senior Manager, Deloitte Africa: Retail, Consumer and Manufacturing Industry
Topic: : Dancing with Robots & Digital Trade in Africa
09:50 - 10:20Nwabisa Mayema Entrepreneur, speaker and founder of nnfinity
Topic: The Future of the World is in Africa
10: 25 - 10:55Merle O’Brien Founder, Creation Lab
Topic: The Unthinkable Future - Scenarios for the World in 2050
11:00 - 11:10 Short break
11:15 - 11:45
Simon Dingle Technologist, fintech entrepreneur, broadcaster and experience designer
Topic: In Math We Trust
11:55 - 12:20
Adriana Marais Founder of #ProudlyHuman, and Director at the Foundation for Space Development
Topic: Off-World: Above and Beyond
12:20 - 13:00
Moderator: Nadine Mayers
Panelists:Dylan PiattiMerle O’BrienNwabisa MayemaAdriana Marais
Moderated Panel Discussioncentred around the different topics covered by the speakers
13:00 Lunch, Wine and Networking
SPEAKER
Dylan PiattiSenior Manager, Deloitte Africa: Retail, Consumer and Manufacturing Industry
Topic: Dancing with Robots & Digital Trade in Africa
-
A growth strategist & expert relationship
partner, Dylan Piatti has over 13 years’
experience working in start-ups, SMME’s
and corporate. He helps clients navigate
business complexity, create value, solve
wicked problems and disrupt thinking
through the ‘art-of-the-possible’.
Dylan sits on the Deloitte SA Payments
practice committee and the Africa
Consumer Industry Executive Committee
focused on helping listed MNC’s and
Mid-Market clients. He is Chairman of
the Board of the E-commerce Forum
Africa representing over 55 companies.
He represents Africa on the Global DTN
(Digital Trade Network), and actively sits on
a number of Advisory Boards.
Dylan has presented at, and led Executive
Private Sector & Government sessions in
Africa, Europe and the US. In December
2018 he realised a 10 month ambition in
constituting the 1st Pan-African Digital CEO
Forum in Kenya, with 22 executives from 15
companies representing 11 Countries.
As a qualified futurist, Dylan has led
multiple global disruptive thinking
interventions as a keynote speaker, MC and
moderator. He holds a PPE from UCT and
is currently enrolled on the MPhil in Future
Studies at the University of Stellenbosch
Business School.
SPEAKER
Nwabisa MayemaEntrepreneur, speaker and founder of nnfinity
Topic: The Future of the World is in Africa
-
A dynamic entrepreneur with a zest for
life and adventure, Nwabisa’s passion lies
in the development of women business
owners and their businesses. She founded
nnfinity in 2016, to support the growth of
women-owned businesses, and believes
women lead the way in solving poverty in
Africa by creating sustainable jobs in their
scalable businesses. The company provides
training and consulting services to women-
owned businesses, whilst focusing on
the development of social capital through
its endeavours.
As a sought-after speaker, Nwabisa’s focus
is on delivering knowledge and insights
on entrepreneurship and women-specific
enterprise development around the world.
She has served as the Partnerships Lead
for TEDxCapeTown since 2018 and is the
2019 Curator for TEDxCapeTownWomen.
She has also been selected to serve on the
Board of Trustees for the Branson Centre of
Entrepreneurship in South Africa.
Her entrepreneurial journey dates back to
2006 when she co-founded The Collective
Genius. The business consults to corporates
on social responsibility projects aimed
at students in high school and tertiary
education. Its clients, including Anglo
American, the First Rand Foundation and
government agencies, reach over 100 000
students a year through leadership and
skills development programmes. Nwabisa
stepped down from her role as managing
director of The Collective Genius in 2016 to
focus her energies on ensuring sustainable
growth for other women entrepreneurs
through nnfinity.
Nwabisa obtained her BSocSci in Political
Studies and Public Administration from
UCT in 2005, and was selected as one of 100
Brightest Young Minds in South Africa in
the same year. In 2014 she finished in the
top five of the Goldman Sachs-GIBS 10 000
Women Certificate Programme. She was
listed by the Independent Media Group on
its Top 100 Young Independents: Inspiring
and Aspiring Young South Africans
(Innovation category) in 2016, and was
nominated as one of Inspiring Fifty South
Africans in 2017.
SPEAKER
Merle O’BrienFounder, Creation Lab
Topic: The Unthinkable Future - Scenarios for the World in 2050
-
A futurist, creative artist and teacher by
training, Merle is the founder of Creation
lab, the African Innovation Institute for the
Future, which brings a bold new approach
to Reality and Foresight studies for
Humanity in the 21st century.
She is recognised as one of 143 women
futurists in the world, ranked among the
top 5 in Africa and named a Woman of
the Decade in Innovation by the Women’s
Economic Forum (India) adding to her
awards in business leadership, crisis
management and creative activism.
Merle guides foresight and design
innovation teams in South Africa,
Botswana, India, UK, Germany and the
USA using her African Trendstar, a custom-
designed radar of rising trends, possible
scenarios and opportunity spaces for new
value and wealth creation.
Her vision is #AnEveNWorld | the ideal
scenario of an Africa without poverty,
inequality and ignorance limiting human
ingenuity, economic growth and
societal peace.
She writes, consults and speaks on ‘the
Unthinkable Future’ helping revolutionary
thought leaders unlock new pathways of
hope to solve complex problems with full
cognitive, human-centred solutions.
She is busy with doctoral research into the
potential for human creative intelligence
to transcend artificial intelligence in a
counter-revolutionary approach to the 4th
Industrial Revolution.
Merle holds an MPhil in Future Studies
from the Institute for Futures Research at
the University of Stellenbosch Business
School, and a BA from UCT. She is also
a martial arts, yoga and Odissi Indian
classical dance teacher trained by some
of the world’s finest Gurus in India and
South Africa.
SPEAKER
Simon DingleTechnologist, fintech entrepreneur, broadcaster and experience designer
Topic: In Math We Trust
-
Simon Dingle believes we’re doing money
wrong and is trying to fix it. He is the
founder of Lettuce, an app providing real
time market data on any asset from ETFs
to cryptocurrencies. He is also the author of
“In Math we trust”, a book about the rise of
bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency.
He previously directed product design at
Curve in London, Luno in Singapore and
22seven in Cape Town.
Simon actively invests in block chain
technologies as founder of Inves, with a
particular focus on Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Until recently he hosted a weekly
technology show on 5fm and is a regular
media commentator on Bitcoin and block
chain technologies, having appeared on
local and international television and radio
shows including Tech News Today and The
Money Show. He has been a columnist for
Finweek, Brainstorm and SA Computer
Magazine among others. He is also a serial
entrepreneur of varying success, having co-
founded Skratch Technology, Split Infinitive
Broadcasting, Deathcard Media, Reshare,
Massive Gap and Phantom Design.
He started one of the world’s first podcasts
in 2005 with Seedcast, and went on to host
the ZA Tech Show before starting Binary
and Take Back the Day.
He has worked as a communications
consultant to technology firms including
Google, Oracle, The Shuttleworth
Foundation and others. He was awarded
Classic Business Journalist of the Year in
2011 for his technology columns in Finweek,
the Highway Africa New Media Personality
of the Year for his hosting of the ZA Tech
Show podcast, and a listing in the Mail &
Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans
edition of 2010.
Simon is passionate about open source
technology and content and believes most
of the world’s problems can be solved with
design and critical thinking.
SPEAKER
Adriana MaraisFounder of #ProudlyHuman, and Director at the Foundation for Space Development
Topic: Off-World: Above and Beyond
-
Adriana is the Founder of #ProudlyHuman,
an initiative aimed at pioneering new
frontiers in research and technology
for a sustainable future on earth, above
and beyond. She is also Director at the
Foundation for Space Development,
an initiative of which is Africa2Moon, to
inspire the youth of developing nations, in
particular Africa, to “Reach for the Moon”
through education and science. She is a
member of the South African government
advisory task team on the 4th Industrial
Revolution, Faculty at the Singularity
University and Duke Corporate Education,
and an astronaut candidate with the Mars
One Project.
Previously, Adriana was Head of Innovation
at SAP Africa between 2017 and 2019.
Her career began in academia, and she
has authored numerous articles on her
research in theoretical quantum physics,
and won awards including the L’Oréal –
UNESCO International Rising Talent Award
in 2015 and the Royal Society of South
Africa Meiring Naudé Medal in 2016. She is
an alumna of the Lindau Nobel Laureate
Meetings in physics and a Global Women’s
Forum Rising Talent, both 2016.
Adriana holds an MSc (summa cum laude)
in quantum cryptography and a PhD
in quantum biology. Her postdoctoral
research focused on quantum effects in
photosynthesis as well as the origins of
prebiotic molecules and life itself.
She is currently pursuing a second PhD
in economics in resource-constrained
environments at the University of Cape
Town. In December 2020, she and her
team will depart for an overwinter, off-
world settlement simulation experiment
in Antarctica to demonstrate community
living and off-grid capabilities from life-
support to communication systems.
NOTES
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