KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

JIM BENSON

Jim Benson is the creator of "Personal Kanban," a lean process used to manage knowledge workers. Knowledge work is a fundamentally tricky type of work to gain focus around, as those engaged in this type of work are by nature inventive. Invention and innovation are unpredictable, and related tasks are often amorphous. For the past two decades Jim has worked at uncovering ways for individuals and groups to communicate, collaborate, and find clarity in unpredictable and amorphous environments. He is also the CEO of Modus Cooperandi, a company focusing on collaborative management. He writes about and works with clients to achieve cultures of continuous improvement. These cultures actively seek out opportunities to improve job satisfaction and/or performance. Since starting Modus, Jim has helped clients as diverse as The World Bank, The United Nations, NBC Universal, The Library Corporation, and Comcast find collaborative solutions, identify and implement improvements, and create more innovative cultures.

RACHEL BOTSMAN

Rachel Botsman is a global thought leader on the power of collaboration and sharing through network technologies to transform the way we live, work and consume. She has inspired a new consumer economy with her influential book What's Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption Is Changing The Way We Live. TIME Magazine recently called Collaborative Consumption one of the "10 Ideas That Will Change The World". Rachel was recently named a 2013 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, which recognises individuals for their achievements and commitment to improving the state of the world.

Rachel is the founder of Collaborative Lab, the leading source of expertise for businesses and governments that want to embrace the collaborative economy. She was a founding partner in the Collaborative Fund, an early stage investor in disruptive ventures and a former director at President Clinton's Foundation.

Her thought leadership and writings on the intersection of technology and human behavior have appeared in Harvard Business Review, The Economist, CNN, New York Times, The Guardian, Fast Company and other publications. Rachel has a monthly future tech trends column in the Australian Financial Review and is a contributing editor to WIRED UK. She was named by Monocle as one of the top 20 speakers in the world to have at your conference. She has presented at high profile events including The Clinton Global Initiative, TED, HP, Google, and No.10 Downing Street.

She received her BFA (Honors) from the University of Oxford, and undertook her postgraduate studies at Harvard University. Her work has taken her to every continent, except Antarctica.

BRANT COOPER

Brant Cooper helps organisations big and small innovate. He is the co-author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Lean Entrepreneur and is a sought after speaker, advisor and mentor.

He has over 16 years experience helping companies bring innovative products to market. His startup career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, inCode, and many others. He has experienced IPO, acquisition, rapid growth, and crushing failure.

Brant authored The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss lean startup and customer development concepts, earning a distribution of over 50,000. He has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs across the globe.

Brant is the co-founder of Moves the Needle Group, which has advised the innovation practices of such leading companies as Qualcomm, Intuit, Capital One, Pitney Bowes and Hewlett-Packard.

He is the co-author with Eric Ries and Patrick Vlaskovits of the NY Times Bestseller, The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets (Feb 26, 2013).

MARTIN FOWLER | Chief Scientist, ThoughtWorks

Martin Fowler is an author, speaker and a loud-mouthed pundit on the topic of software development. He's been working in the software industry since the mid-80's where he got into the then-new world of object-oriented software. Martin spent much of the 90's as a consultant and trainer helping people develop object-oriented systems, with a focus on enterprise applications. In 2000 Martin joined ThoughtWorks.

Martin Fowler's main interest is to understand how to design software systems so as to maximize the productivity of development teams. In doing this he's looked to understand patterns of good software design and the processes that support software design. Martin has become a big fan of Agile approaches and the resulting focus on evolutionary software design.

ENYO KUMAHOR | Managing Director Pan-Africa, ThoughtWorks

Betty Enyonam Kumahor is the Regional Managing Director of Pan-Africa for ThoughtWorks. Under Enyo's direction, ThoughtWorks Pan-Africa has been nominated by Africa Business Awards as Best African Company for 2013.

Enyo is a frequent speaker on leadership, productivity, business and motivation. She has spoken on technology and telecommunications in Africa, most notably as guest speaker at Ghana's largest and oldest University, the University of Ghana (Legon), for their 2013 Congregation of over 7,000 graduates.

Enyo chairs the Woman 2.1 Summit Advisory Board and the Ghana Women in IT (GWITT) organisations. She has been profiled in numerous programs such as on Ghana Broadcasting Corporation's UniqFM StandOut program, and in Ernst & Young's next generation leadership program (Global NextGen), and in a book titled Upcoming Women Leaders in Ghana (to be published).

Though driving transit buses, coaches, and refereeing field hockey were Enyo's first loves, she is now a leader in Africa's emerging technology sector and continues to inspire and mentor the next generation of technologists on the continent.