Enterprise AI Summit schedule

Dr Jacques Ludik is a smart technology entrepreneur, AI expert, founder of multiple AI companies, author, AI ecosystem builder, and award-winning AI Leader with a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence (Computer Science) and 25+ years' experience in AI and Data Science and its applications.

He is currently the Founder and CEO of Cortex Group and Cortex Logic that is focused on providing scalable ultra-personalized AI-enabled wellness solutions, where Vive Teens is a spin-out company focused on providing an AI-driven personal mental wellness companion for teenagers and Journey Wellness is an AI-enabled ultra-personalized health wellness solution; and the Founder and President of the Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA) that focuses on transforming Africa through AI.

Enhancing AI Adaption: Can Africa Leapfrog Ahead • A holistic look at international trends and developments in the field of artificial intelligence in Africa. Understanding how best to navigate these and the opportunities that exist for South Africa to leapfrog into the next stage of AI innovation.

Dr. Mactar Seck is an Economic Affairs Officer at UNECA since 2006. He holds a PhD degree in Telecommunication, Electronic systems and Multimedia Engineering. He has been involved in the telecommunication, ICT4D and STI field over the last 20 years, specializing in areas such as digital policy strategy and regulatory framework, internet governance issues, information infrastructure development, nanotechnology, Internet related research (IoT, Cloud services, artificial intelligence. etc.), integrated services digital networks including digital ID, digital economy, tax policy platforms, etc. He has brought to ECA a long working experience which He uses his day-to-day work to support African countries to use digital technologies as means of achieving the SDGs. He assisted several African countries to formulate, implement and evaluate policies and strategies in digital technologies/applications for achieving SDGs.

PANEL: Spotlight on AI Leaders in Africa – If You Can Only Know One Thing • How to build an inclusive AI ecosystem for Africa • Exploring best practices from around the continent   • Get tangible and replicable recommendations from industry thought leaders

Wayne Hempel is a Global Technology Executive with a passion for delivering data-driven, quantitative value to the organization quickly and effectively. Successful at building innovative technological capabilities and organisations as well as optimising existing structures, evolving them through the different business cycles. A collaborative leader who works in conjunction with business executives to define long and short-term strategies to achieve bottom line results. An ambitious and energetic executive who prides himself in getting the most from both internal and external human resources. Wayne is a data and analytics evangelist focused on driving cultural change in a non-traditionally data focused industry.

Olubayo (Bayo) is driven by a vision to build an AI-first society where Artificial Intelligence is effectively deployed to solve local problems, particularly the sustainable millennial goals. He believes that AI will provide a springboard for Africa’s development by enhancing how we live, work and play.

He believes that Nigeria’s population of 200million with median age of about 18 years is a huge strategic advantage that can position Nigeria as one of the top 10 AI Knowledge centres in the world, especially the opportunity to raise 1 million AI talents in 10 years with globally relevant skills that can drive increased employability, FOREX inflow, AI-enabled start-ups and enhancement of the general quality of life through solution-oriented AI applications in Health, Agriculture, Financial Inclusion, Smart City etc.

He is a leading expert in Data Science, Advanced Analytics, Business Transformation, Marketing and Strategy, with 19 years of cognate industry experience from two largest economies in Africa (Nigeria &South Africa).

John is a Tech Entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience working in new market acquisitions across various technology verticals in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. John is one of Africa’s leading experts on how businesses can leverage key technology trends, transform organizations and drive competitive advantage for impact in industries including finance, agriculture, health, education, gaming and startup enterprises. He is a Pan African renowned business leader, entrepreneur, investor, consultant, mentor and public speaker holding multiple roles including Founder Adalabs Kenya – AI and smart tech lab accelerating and training entrepreneurs and developers in east Africa and Founder Afyarekod – AI led consumer driven medical record storage platform for consumers.

Speak, Understand, Act - Natural Language Processing in Africa

• Understand how best to leverage knowledge in text with NLP techniques • NLP taking unstructured data and taking words and categorising this for output • Using NLP in the African context, how to cater for a multitude of languages

Spotlight Session: Start-ups on the Come Up

Munyala is an experienced strategic designer with a keen interest in the application of human centered and behavioral design for Social Impact. He has spent the last 6 years applying design led processes to help organizations overcome the barriers of innovation, facilitating the adoption of a beginner’s mindset in problem solving and behavioral strategies in creating and testing impactful interventions for social change. Being a creative and an amazing listener, he understands the role of experimentation, empathy & facilitation of collaborative processes in crafting complex problems and designing sustainable and impactful solutions.

Case Study: Integrating AI in Pre-existing Legacy Systems • Integrating vs replacing your legacy systems • Measuring the interoperability of legacy systems to assess synergy with new tech • How to roll out a system modernisation and integration without disruption

Dr Mark Nasila is the Chief Analytics Officer of FNB Risk. As an experienced AI, 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 and 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. He is also a PhD and Masters co-supervisor and external examiner at various universities in South Africa in the AI, data science and statistics areas. Dr Nasila has published and written opinion pieces in the BusinessDay, Daily Maverick, CIO Talk Network , CIO.com, 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"

Spotlight Session: Start-ups on the Come Up

Anthony Nwankwo is the Founder of iScholar.ai, where he is developing ground-breaking AI-Powered solutions that will solve the problems in the global Learning Ecosystem. He is passionate about the innovative application of Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence to build disruptive systems that will change the way the world works.

Spotlight Session: Start-ups on the Come Up

Lionel is an ECSA registered electronic engineer with a BEng Hons in Electronic Engineering. Founder of Abadala Technologies, an Artificial Intelligence and Data analytics technology consultancy that develops advanced tech for engineering, finance and recently NGOs. Also serving as Snr Data Science and AI consultant for Notto Inc. Consulted in over 50 international projects receiving 5 seals of excellence and 2 grant fundings from United States Department of Defense and Horizon Europe SBIR scheme

Spotlight Session: Start-ups on the Come Up

Munyala is an experienced strategic designer with a keen interest in the application of human centered and behavioral design for Social Impact. He has spent the last 6 years applying design led processes to help organizations overcome the barriers of innovation, facilitating the adoption of a beginner’s mindset in problem solving and behavioral strategies in creating and testing impactful interventions for social change. Being a creative and an amazing listener, he understands the role of experimentation, empathy & facilitation of collaborative processes in crafting complex problems and designing sustainable and impactful solutions.