Tech4Africa Johannesburg 2015

They Just Don't Get It - How to Explain your product so your clients get it, love it and buy it!

- The Curse of Knowledge: Why smart people are bad at explaining their products & services

- Explanations are like Orgasms: Lessons from nature

- Tricks of the Trade: the basic structure of any good explainer video (Hint: it's like a sales pitch)

This talk reveals what African consumers expect from a digital experience across categories. We report on a study amongst South African, Nigerian and Kenyan consumers to establish the digital expectation commonalities and differences when engaging with different sectors. We answer questions such as: are consumers more concerned about safety of information in the area of social networking or digital finances? Which sector has the highest consumer expectations of being device agnostic? In so doing, the presentation serves as a guide for digital service providers to assist in developing offerings that truly meet the digital consumer’s expectations.

The Future Of Telecommunications: A Paradigm Shift Into The Unknown

Jatin will be discussing the future of communications pertaining to new trends, new technologies and the migration to cloud services within the mobile arena. Hot topics such as the price of data, mobile termination rates and the death of the smartphone contract will be explored. Consumer insights will also be discussed as the telecommunications industry is primarily driven by the wallets of their customers. The industry is clearly set for an unsustainable path as there are many interrelated factors in play. These include migration to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the emergence of new telecom players and the upcoming price wars. Telecommunications all over the world, including South Africa, has become a volatile and unpredictable entity that is on the cusp of transformation. This is what makes telecoms such an exciting industry to be in. Anything is possible, and he certainly wants to be part of it by sharing his research and expertise to ensure a better future for all."

The greatest equalizer in the world is Internet Access. Small businesses in Africa can reach the world through this medium. DataWind has the solution to make the internet free to millions of Africans and billions of people in the developing world and has already started implementing this solution in parts of Africa and India. We’ll review the Impact that that the internet, and low cost PC's are having on education and commerce in the developing world.

WeThinkCode_ is a new kind of peer-to-peer tech institution launching in Johannesburg in 2016, dedicated to transforming technology education in order to bridge the gap between undeveloped talent and the desperate IT skills shortage in South Africa. The magic of WeThinkCode_ lies in its selection criteria that enable us to source high potential programmers in the most unexpected pool of young talent. 

A talk about the process of developing ideas, evaluating ideas, and communicating ideas. This talk explores the lifecycle of prototyping, the influence of UX, and the advantages for development teams, product owners, and users. This talk includes theoretical information, personal experiences, and practical examples for developing better ideas and making better products

User research is a vital part of the User Experience (UX) toolkit, and is especially useful when developing new products and services. In my talk I tell some stories about research from experience – unexpected findings, surprises, ‘why didn’t I think of that’ moments, research for validation and inspiration. An entertaining and insightful look at the things people come up with when you are out there engaging with them.

How User Interface and User Experience has been intertwined into the fabric of time. It is not something new or something old, but something we have been doing from beginning of time. Have you ever wondered why the competition product works and yours not...?

When you are a big corporate like Discovery, having dedicated UX labs and UX specialists are easier to budget for, but when we look at small-to-medium setups or even start-ups, this function is either outsourced or ignored more often than not. It is just too costly to employ a full-time employee for this function and UX specialists are like chips...you can't have just one. We need a new breed of designers. We need UX capable interface designers and developers.