Five reasons to be at Tech4Africa 2012

Tech4Africa is the premier mobile, web and emerging technology event in Africa, bringing global perspective to the African context. Culminating in an annual event over two days, which brings together attendees and speakers from around the world, Tech4Africa's vision is that technology can catalyse economic and social change in Africa.

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 ... It continues with the idea that some of the best technology minds in the world are in Africa!

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.

Apart from the stellar line-up of international and African speakers here are five good reasons to attend Tech4Africa 2012:

1. Top-value tickets

Tech4Africa 2012 has worked hard to bring the ticket price down to about half what it was last year as they want to make sure 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 = R1,000 (ex VAT)
  
• Two-day conference pass = R1,800 (ex VAT)

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

Some of the companies sending delegates to Tech4Africa are: 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Skill Up And Hack On

Delegates can put on their comfiest clothes, get a good night's sleep, pack their laptops and come and see what Tech4Africa 2012 has on offer at the dedicated 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.

Last, but not least
An unofficial sixth entry into the top reasons to come to Tech4Africa 2012... Delegates can stick around after Thursday's conference for some drinks and nibbles at the official Tech4Africa after-party when they can unwind, digest all the ideas they've been given and share a beer with the people they've met.

For more reasons to attend go to http://tech4africa.com/about-tech4africa/ or contact Zinnia Peens at moc.acirfa4hcet@ainniz or Carole Knight at moc.acirfa4hcet@elorac.