George Mulamula
Dr. George Mulamula is the CEO and founder of Technovate Advisory Services (TAS) dedicated to bringing about digital innovations and sustainable economic development with Regional and Local Government Authorities. He is also the Senior Government Advisor on ICT entrepreneurship and innovation for an enabling environment and eco-system.
Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of the Dar Teknohama (ICT) Business Incubator (DTBi) for entrepreneurship & innovation at the Commission for Science & Technology, the only tech incubator in Tanzania. He was also the first Principal Deputy CEO of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry in Rwanda, working on SME and Entrepreneurship Policy, and the Senior ICT Advisor in the Government of Rwanda and in that capacity, the Lead Policy Advisor on the Rwanda National Information Communication Infrastructure Policy Plan II and WSIS Document preparation. He has also been a guest lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University (Kigali Campus) and has taught at KIST in Kigali, Rwanda.
Temie Giwa
Temie Giwa is the founder and CEO of LifeBank, a platform which enables timely delivery of blood and other high value medical products to hospitals and health centers in Nigeria.
She was named one of BBC’s 100 Women in 2014, one of the 100 Most Inspiring Women in Nigeria for 2017 by YNaija, and one of the “six entrepreneurs who demonstrate the positive role women are playing in creating opportunities and preparing the region for the Fourth Industrial Revolution” by the World Economic Forum on Africa. In 2016, Giwa was invited to give a talk at the London-based TEDxEuston Salon event. Her talk was titled “Healthcare is a Right.” Giwa holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Minnesota State University Moorhead and a master’s degree in Public Administration from Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Solomzi Makohliso
Dr. Solomzi Makohliso is an international entrepreneur with biotechnology industry experience in the United States, Europe and South Africa. His areas of interest include sustainable innovation, entrepreneurship and impact investment, particularly in healthcare and green technologies in sub-Saharan Africa.
He is the deputy leader of the EssentialTech Program at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He also serves on the Swiss National Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation in Science & Technology with Africa, as well as on the boards of various start-up companies in South Africa and Switzerland. Dr. Makohliso holds undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Physics from Rhodes University and Biomedical Engineering from Brown University, a master’s degree in Medical Science from Brown University and a PhD in Biomaterials from EPFL.
Lenny Koh
Professor S. C. Lenny Koh is a Chair Professor in Operations Management and Director at multiple research centers at the University of Sheffield. She is also the co-founder of Supply Chain Management and Information Systems (SCMIS) Consortium, a global network of leading academic and practitioners driving research and knowledge exchange on supply chain and information systems.
Koh is an internationally renowned authority on supply chain management with a focus on low carbon and sustainability. Her work is multi- and inter- disciplinary, crosses supply chain, information systems, energy, engineering, social science and science disciplines in understanding today’s and future complex supply chain problems induced by climate change and uncertainty. Koh holds a first-class honors degree in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, and a PhD in Operations Management.
Bitange Ndemo
Bitange Ndemo is Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Nairobi’s Business School. His research centers on the link between ICTs and small and medium enterprises with emphasis on how ICTs influence economic development in Africa. Prof. Ndemo is the Chairman of Kenya’s Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce that is developing a road map for the country’s digital transformation.
He is also an advisor and Board member to several organizations including Safaricom one of the leading telecommunication company in Africa, Mpesa Foundation, Research ICT Africa that is based in South Africa. Besides having been a Permanent Secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communication where he was credited with facilitating many transformative ICT projects, he is a member of the Global Learning Council, a member of the Global Blockchain Council (part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Fourth Industrial Revolution Councils), a Senior advisor to UN’s Global Pulse (Big Data initiatives) and the UNCDF’s Better than Cash Alliance. He is an Open Data/Big Data evangelist and dedicated to simplification (visualization) of data for ordinary citizens to consume. He writes two columns every week for the Business Daily and Nation on-line.
Dr. Kevin Kochersberger
Dr. Kevin Kochersberger is the Director of the Unmanned Systems Lab and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech. Leading RPA research since 2004, he has focused on novel aircraft design and applications that have included morphing wing control, low-resource drone design, nuclear materials detection and localization, air and ground cooperative autonomous systems, and online 3D environment reconstruction from aerial imagery. Dr. Kochersberger has focused on curriculum development in his 25-year academic career, developing the first FAA-accepted powered parachute light sport aircraft inspection course in the U.S. and most recently, developing accredited one-week and 10-week drone programs in Malawi.
Kevin is a flight instructor in sailplanes and an instrument-rated, single engine airplane pilot.
Kevin received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 1994 and worked in aerospace and electronics prior to an academic career. He is the author or co-author to over 90 technical publications and has advised 73 graduate students.
Giacomo Rambaldi
Giacomo Rambaldi is Senior Programme Coordinator ICTs at the Technical Centre for Agricultural & Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in Wageningen, Netherlands. He has 37 years of professional experience in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean where he worked for various international organizations including FAO and the Asian Development Bank and on projects funded by the Italian Aid to Development and the European Commission. He holds a degree in agricultural sciences from the State University of Milan, Italy.
At present he is member of the ICT for Agriculture (ICT4Ag) team at CTA and is coordinating a stream of activities related to the deployment of drone technology in agriculture including influencing drone governance’s policy making.
Giacomo has been leading Web2.0 and Social Media capacity building activities at CTA and earned worldwide recognition for his work as recipient of the 2013 WSIS Project Prize in the category E-Agriculture.
He also leads activities in the domain of participatory GIS where he animates a large community of practice. One of his projects earned CTA the 2007 World Summit Award in the category e-culture.
In collaboration with other members of the ICT4Ag team at CTA, Giacomo animates thematic Communities of Practice which underpin CTA’s work on ICTs and technology innovation.
Personal presence on Social Media:
Twitter: @iapad
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giacomo-rambaldi/
Blogger: http://participatorygis.blogspot.com
Min (Timothy) Tian
Min Tian is the CEO of SF Technology and the CTO of SF Express, one of China’s largest logistics service providers which has received the country’s first unmanned aerial vehicle airspace license for commercial drone delivery.
He was invited to speak about smart logistics at the 2017 Tencent Cloud Summit. Prior to SF Express, Tian worked for United Parcel Service of America. He holds a master’s degree from Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree from Fudan University.