Reasons to attend Tech4Africa 2012

Tech4Africa started with the idea that people in Africa shouldn't have to travel the world to listen to and interact with the best technology minds in the world. Sponsors for this year's Tech4Africa include MTN, IBM, Thoughtworks, Google, InMobi, DMMA, AngelHub, TravelStart.co.za, PayFast, Everlytic, Realm Digital, CTU, Mozilla, Real Time Wine and Mimiboard.

Reasons to attend Tech4Africa 2012

Top-value tickets

Tickets have been brought down to almost half the price from what it was last year. Organisers want to ensure that everyone who needs to be at Tech4Africa can be there - from developers to designers, students to social media marketers.

• One-day pass for Developer Day and Hackathon only costs R1 000 (excl. VAT)
  
• Two-day conference pass costs R1,800 (excl. VAT)

New networks and old friends

Delegates will have the opportunity to meet international speakers including Desigan Chinniah from Mozilla and Neal Ford from ThoughtWorks as well as networking and finding potential new partners, clients, recruits or employers.

Delegates from Adapt IT, CloudAfrica, Department of Education, DSTV Mobile, Firestring, FNB, GeoLink, Highway Africa, Hollard Insurance, House for Hack, IS, Nokia, PayFast, Quirk, SEACOM, Standard Bank, Symantec, SYNAQ, Technical Placements, Telkom, Virgin Mobile, are expected to be in attendance.

Expand African horizons

By attending Tech4Africa 2012 delegates can be the go-to person companies turn to when they want to find out what is happening in the tech landscape beyond the Limpopo as they will be able to hear from speakers like Sim Shegaya from Nigeria's largest e-commerce site, DealDey, or Amolo N'gweno, founder of Africa's first ever ISP, now running Digital Divide Data Kenya.

Tech4Africa 2012 will also be dialing in key tech hubs from around the continent, including Liberia, Senegal, Ghana, Tanzania, Egypt, Congo, Kenya and Uganda.

Spot the next Bill Gates

Ignite returns with a pitch-coaching workshop and open discussion forum for qualifying start-ups with top mentors, including AngelHub, the IBM Global Entrepreneurship Team and Deloitte Digital. The top start-up pitches will present to the whole audience in a live pitch competition on Thursday, 1 November, for a prize of R25 000. Delegates can pick their winner and perhaps be the first to spot Africa's next top entrepreneur and tech genius.

Skill Up And Hack On

Delegates can also attend the Developer Day and Hackathon:

• Thoughtworks will lead a full one-day session on Agile and continuous delivery.
  
• Hackathon will cover Ruby on Rails, Mastering the Lamb Shack, BigData/EC2/Scala/Hadoop & Virtualisation for Haxors.

• Workshops will cover Windows 8, digital marketing, mobile monetization, and the Mxit developer ecosystem.

For more, go to www.tech4africa.com.