Conference Speakers

Axel Schultze

Co-Founder & Chairman World Innovations Forum; CEO Society3 Group 

Opening Keynote: WIForum Agenda 2030
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 09:10 AM CEST

Session Title: The Innovations Age
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 12:10 PM CEST

Session Title: Neuro Ideation
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 10:45 AM CEST

Session Title: Seeking Truly Entrepreneurial Talents
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 9:25 AM CEST

Closing Keynote: Future of Nations
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 12:195 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Axel Schultze, founder + Chair of the World Innovations Forum.

Axel Schultze is a highly innovative entrepreneur himself. He changed the face of tech distribution in the 80’s and built a $5 Billion tech distributor with an all new business model. In 1997 he built the first company with a digital stock exchange. In 2000 Axel created one of the Software as a Service based businesses with a patented and very disruptive sales channel management software.

From 2015 onward Axel started to help startups to develop disruptive businesses in a far more methodical way than anybody else.

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Fabio Segura

Co-CEO at Jacobs Foundation

Session Title: Learning in extraordinary times: understanding and embracing learning variability
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 09:35 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Since July 2019, Fabio Segura is Co-CEO at Jacobs Foundation (JF) where he shares the responsibility for the overall success of the organization, while leading the development and execution of its 2030 strategy.

From 2015 to 2019 he served as Head of International Programs at JF, where he was responsible for the strategic, financial, and operative direction of programs across Africa and Latin America. During this time he designed and led JF’s largest program to date: Transforming Education in Cocoa Communities (TRECC), a comprehensive strategy involving the public and private sector to improve quality of education in Côte D’Ivoire.

Previously he served as Senior Investment Manager at LGT Venture Philanthropy, where he was responsible to establish and grow the organization’s investments and operations in Latin America and the Caribbean from 2008 to 2014.

From 2004 to 2007, he served as a Project Manager for the Center for Sustainability at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). During this time, he developed the center’s regional strategy for Latin America, leading a research team into the multifaceted nature of sustainability in the region to successfully impact public policy.

Prior to his work in sustainability, Mr. Segura served as a peace and development worker in Colombia. He has assisted local governments in vulnerable regions of the country in the design and delivery of peacebuilding initiatives, while simultaneously working directly with at-risk communities. He also served as consultant for the United Nations, including UNODC, UNEP, UNICEF, and FAO.

Fabio Segura is Honoree of the Outstanding Young Persons of the World “TOYP” (Japan, 2008) and a recipient of the Colombian Ministry of Education’s Andres Bello Award for academic excellence (1996). He is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education Programs on Strategic Management and Financial Stewardship of Non Profit Organizations. He further holds a professional degree in Government and International Relations from the Externado de Colombia University.

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Alexander Lanz

Managing Director, Happel Foundation

Session Title: Entrepreneurship Development Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 09:55 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Since early 2017 Alexander Lanz has been the Managing Director of the Happel Foundation, a grant-making foundation based in Lucerne. Prior to that, he served as COO of Vescore AG, a Swiss asset management company. Between October 2013 and June 2015, he was COO for the business areas Institutional Clients & Asset Management at Notenstein Privatbank AG. Before that, he was engaged in different management positions at Bank Sarasin & Co Ltd. (now Bank J. Safra Sarasin).

In 2004, Alexander Lanz graduated with a law degree from the University of Basel. In addition, he holds an Executive MBA with a specialization in Global Leadership & Intercultural Management from the Institute for Communication & Management in Lucerne.

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Axel Peyriere

Startups – Mentoring – Advising – Emerging Markets

Session Title: Entrepreneurship Development Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 09:55 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Axel is an enthusiastic entrepreneur and angel investor working with startups all around the world.

He has worked / mentored / coached / partnered / invested in more than 200 startups around the world. He is specially keen on investing in online marketplaces and emerging and frontier markets.

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Teresa Widmer

Global Manager Swiss Entrepreneurship Program (Swiss EP)

Session Title: Entrepreneurship Development Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 09:55 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Teresa is leading the Swiss Entrepreneurship Program (powered by SECO) that aims at strengthening entrepreneurial ecosystems bottom-up by working with local entrepreneurs and organizations managing incubator and accelerator programs, mentor and angel networks in Peru, Vietnam and the Western Balkans. Through our network of international entrepreneurs and startup experts, Swiss EP supports these organizations to strengthen their performance, improve programs and deliver high level services to their entrepreneurs, through strategic and practical advice as well as valuable international contacts. Before that, Teresa has worked in the field of organizational development, coaching and corporate social responsibility. Teresa holds a master of advanced studies in development and cooperation from ETH Zurich and masters in business administration and business education.

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Swiss EP Website

Owen Sakawa

Founder & CEO of RepairNet Inc

Session Title: Innovative Startups present – Pitch 1
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 10:15 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Owen is the Founder and CEO of RepairNet. A mobility platform billed as the “Uber for Auto Repair” that leverages machine learning to make car repair and maintenance affordable, convenient, and transparent. He’s a highly technical and experienced technology entrepreneur with a passion for continuous improvement that pervades every aspect of his life. He achieved entrepreneurial success with the founding and growth of DigiPass, a paper document authenticity verification software.

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Eddy Richauvet

Founder of ShopRunBack

Session Title: Innovative Startups present – Pitch 2
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 10:30 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Eddy likes to develop and innovate on the logistics area. He has conducted 3 projects to date that have experienced success and difficulty but always with passion. ShopRunBack is his latest project and the synthesis of previous projects. He comes with his team on a mature project, innovative and really differentiating on the market. He now wants to scale the project worldwide and to become the global logistics player for online returns management.

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Nguyen Trung Dung

Vietnam Country Ambassador

• CEO at BK Holdings Group
• Lecturer at Hanoi University of Science and Technology

Session Title: Vietnam – Entrepreneurs & Innovation Ecosystem Introduction
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 10:45 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Nguyen Trung Dung is an expert in innovation and entrepreneurship certified by the Vietnam-Finland Innovation Partnership Program (IPP), Leadership Innovation Fellowship Program at Cambridge University (UK), Mashav Innovation Program (Israel). He is currently a lecturer at Hanoi University of Technology as well as the CEO of BK-Holding in charge of  science and technology enterprises system, innovative and entrepreneurship of the university. Mr.Dung  has over 15 years experience in investment, training, incubation and technology transfer in Vietnam.

Since 2001, he has been the founder and investor of more than 10 educational institutions, systems integration companies, science and technology enterprises. He is also consulting for government, organizations and enterprises in innovation as well as in the executive boards of organizations and associations in this field such as GEN (VCCI ), Vietnam Mentoring Initiative (VMI), iAngel Network. Chairman of Junior Achievement Vietnam (JA) … In 2017, he was selected as the Ambassador of Vietnam by the World Innovation Forum (WIF).

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Michael Vaz

Vice President Learning & Development ACCOR Asia Pacific

Session Title: Check your BS! A mindset for success
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 11:00 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Michael Vaz resides in Singapore with his lovely wife and three energetic kids. Apart from wanting to continually be an aspiring nominee for super dad and husband of the year, Michael currently serves as Vice President of Learning & Development for Accor.

Described as having “boundless energy & positivity” on stage, Michael has been blessed with the gift of inspiring audiences across various companies and is a passionate conference keynote speaker. Michael has also served in Global , Regional and Corporate leadership roles across a variety of truly global companies & has moved with his family to various locations on this exciting journey called “ life”!

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Lin Hwang

Founder of DamoGo

Session Title: Innovative Startups present – Pitch 3
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 11:25 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Food-tech entrepreneur dedicated to making positive impact thru reducing food waste. 13+ years of experience as an entrepreneur at all levels of the food industry in the U.S. and Asia – food manufacturing/processing, food import/export, food distribution, and also exclusively imported the American restaurant franchise The Halal Guys to South Korea. Currently co-founder & CEO of the mobile app DamoGO – an app that sells restaurants’ surplus unsold food at half price to anyone that wants to save money and the environment.

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Tobias Gunzenhauser

Co-Founder & CEO of Yamo

Session Title: Startup Success Story
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 11:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

As a hobby cook and lover of fresh and healthy food, Tobias Gunzenhauser did not understand why toddlers should eat something with the glasses that is older than themselves. At the same time, many working parents have a lot to do and there are really more exciting things than cooking porridge. Tobias co-founded yamo as a solution to this dilemma.

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Ndubuisi Ekekwe

Founder & Chairman of FASMICRO Group

Session Title: Building the Innovation of Nations
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 23rd at 11:55 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe invented and patented a robotic system used in minimal invasive medical robots. The United States Government acquired assignee rights to the technology in 2017. Dr Ekekwe holds two doctoral and four master’s degrees including PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the Johns Hopkins University, USA. He earned B.Eng electrical and electronics engineering from Federal University of Technology Owerri where he graduated as his class best graduating student.

While in Analog Devices Corp, he worked in the team that designed an accelerometer for the iPhone and he created the company’s first wafer level chip scale package for inertial sensors.

A recipient of IGI Global “Book of the Year” Award, a TED Fellow, IBM Global Entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Dr Ekekwe has held professorships in Carnegie Mellon University and Babcock University, and served in the United States National Science Foundation ERC E&D Committee.

The founder of Zenvus, a global leading precision ag tech company, and Chairman of Fasmicro Group, writes regularly in the Harvard Business Review. Dr. Ekekwe is a selection board member of the $100 Million Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program.

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Odunayo Eweniyi

Cofounder/COO at Piggybank.ng (Piggytech Global Limited)

Session Title: Piggyvest – A Nigerian Success Story In The Making
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 9:05 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Odunayo is a detail-oriented, hands-on and resourceful individual with exceptional creative skills, my field of operations include: Social Media, Marketing, sales, content and product management, and business development.

She is the Cofounder and Chief Operations Officer of PiggyVest. Piggybank.ng securely makes saving possible by combining discipline plus flexibility to make you grow your savings to reach your savings target. Also, she is the CoFounder and COO of PushCV, a company behind some of Africa’s most innovative Internet Start-ups. They build products that solve real problems and make life easier, focusing on the labour market.

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Dr. Ram Kantha Makaju Shrestha, MD

Vice Chancellor, Kathmandu University

Session Title: Innovative Thinking – Nepal
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 9:25 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Dr. Ram Kantha Makaju Shrestha grew up in Dhulikhel, Nepal, and pursued medical career in Austria. He completed Doctor of Medicine in 1986 from University of Vienna and further specialized in surgery from Vorarlberg, Austria, in 1994.

Upon the completion of his studies, he chose to leave further professional opportunities in Europe and began working in Nepal to pursue the ‘road-less travelled’. In 1993 he founded one of the pioneer community-based hospitals of the country, the Dhulikhel Hospital (DH), with the mission of ‘Quality health service to the poor’. With his leadership, the institution which had a very modest beginning became one of the fastest growing health institutions in Nepal. It is now regarded as the state-of-the-art tertiary level hospital and is the nucleus of academic and research activities in health sciences.
In 2012, Dr. Ram was nominated by the prime-ministerial committee to lead Kathmandu University (KU) as the Vice-Chancellor. In his four-year tenure as the Vice-Chancellor, he was appreciated for bringing fundamental changes in the approaches to advance the educational system, especially for his key motto of bringing ‘classrooms from campus to the community.’

In January 2017, Dr. Ram was appointed Vice-Chancellor of KU for a second term. Marking the University’s completion of 25 years as well as the commencement of his second tenure, he has projected KU Silver Jubilee Initiatives – Vision 2030 as the working guidelines for the University. The Initiatives involve a thrust on Quality, Equity, Impact, Innovation, Identity and Global Engagement.

Dr. Ram has been credited for developing a new generation of young leaders in Nepal, instilled with the vision of ‘Quality health service to the poor’ and ‘Quality education for leadership’. Under his leadership Kathmandu University is collaborating with more than a hundred international organizations and universities in service, academics and research, towards building a world-class academic institution in Nepal.

For his outstanding contribution in the health and development sector in Nepal, he was awarded Gorkha Dakshin Bahu, the highest civilian honor, by late King Birendra in 1997. In the year 2011, he was awarded the Rotary Award for Vocational Excellence, the highest social service award in Nepal. Likewise, in January 2017, he was awarded Honorary Doctor of Education in Educational Administration at Chaing Rai Rajabhat University by The King of Thailand for outstanding efforts in advancing educational sector in Nepal and helping forge global collaborations to advance academic opportunities in Nepal. For his contributions in higher education, he was awarded with Sukirtimaya Rastradeep Award for 2017 by the Rt. Honorable President of Nepal, Mrs. Bidhya Devi Bhandari on 5 September 2018.

Marita Schultze

Chair + Co-FounderWorld Innovations Forum,  Co-Founder Society3 Group AG

Session Title: Entrepreneurship Gender Neutral Podium Discussion – Moderator
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 9:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Marita Schultze is the cofounder of 4 innovative companies.

Infinigate, WebStock, BlueRoads, and Society3 in Europe and the US  with her passion for people, technology, and progress.

Her entrepreneurial vision for the World Innovations Forum Foundation was formed together with her husband Axel Schultze that prosperity is possible in all nations by building self-propelled economies through entrepreneurship and innovation, created from within the respective country.

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Clarisse Iribagiza

Chief Executive Officer at DMM.HeHe Ltd

Session Title: Entrepreneurship Gender Neutral Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 9:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Clarisse Iribagiza is a computer scientist in Rwanda. She is the CEO and co-founder of the mobile technology company HeHe Limited and she is one of the UNCTAD’s seven “eTrade for Women Advocates from the developing world”.

Iribagiza attended the University of Rwanda’s College of Science and Technology and she attended a short Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) incubation program.

She founded her company whilst still an under graduate. Her company has grown to have two million customers. The company works with local suppliers and they get access to an on-line store for their goods, inventory maintenance and they receive digital payments from their end customers. HeHe Labs has partnered with GirlHub in an initiative that aims to inspire ambition in Rwandan girls. They teach them about not just ICT, but technology and design in general and in critical thinking.

Iribagiza was one of the “20 movers and shakers of Africa” named at the continent CEO Summit in 2012 and the following year Jeannette Kagame, the First Lady of Rwanda recognised her as one of the Imbuto Foundation’s “Celebrating Young Rwandan Achievers”.

In 2017 she was named as one of OkayAfrica’s 100 Women. Irabagiza sits on the African Development Bank’s Presidential Youth Advisory Group.

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Sophie Meas

Co-Founder & International Director at ShopRunBack

• Administrateur de la CCI France Cambodge

Session Title: Entrepreneurship Gender Neutral Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 9:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Sophie Meas is the co-founder of ShopRunBack.

Having been raised in Cambodia by her parents, Sophie was sent to study in France at the age of 10. Her parents believed that building a better Cambodia would require educated people. She obtained a master’s degree in international business as well as an MBA in Purchase and Supply Chain obtained from the Ecole Supérieure de Gestion (ESG) in Paris. After her studies, she co-founded with her husband ShopRunBack a reverse logistics company in France and Cambodia.

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Agudor Agabas

Co-Founder of AppCyclers

Session Title: Innovate Startup Presents – Pitch 5
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 10:00 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Agudor is a social entrepreneur with a major in business studies currently serving as the project lead at AppCyclers a startup in Tamale, Ghana that provides innovative solutions in handling E-waste. Also, Communications Support at HOPin Academy a social enterprise that provides pragmatic and innovative approaches towards exploring the various fields of entrepreneurship with the aid of technology.  He has great interpersonal skills and well experienced in public speaking, lean startup approaches, content creation, and social media. He is also passionate about building communities, networking, promoting a circular economy and sustainable development in Ghana and Africa at large.

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Ibrahim Abdulmalik

Head of Operations at Farmula

Session Title: Innovate Startup Presents – Pitch 6
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 10:15 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Ibrahim has always loved problem-solving. His earliest memory is his mum given me big words to breakdown into 50 little words and playing with my “Talking WhizKid”. The least he could do was to come up with creative ways to solve his little problems.

As he progressed through life, the desire to solve problems has stuck with him. It informed his decision to be a Mechanical Engineer which brought structure to how he solved problems and Economics which is teaching him about how to allocate scarce resources in problem-solving. And now, he is using creative ways to solve problems in the African Agriculture sector.

There are always going to be problems to solve and more solutions to build. He is only happy that it’s something he is structured to be a part of.

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Cafer Tosun

Executive, Senior Vice President and COO for Big Data and Data Management at SAP SE

Session Title: Innovate Fighting Pandemics
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 11:05 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Cafer is a globally active leader in shaping and transforming businesses and the economy towards a new digital future. He is an executive at SAP and a member of the leadership team at the World Innovation Forum. Cafer was instrumental in implementing an innovation culture at SAP, by establishing Innovation Centers, by strengthening the company culture through Design Thinking, and by developing a platform for collaboration with research, academia, customers and startups.

In his role as the head of Strategic Research and Innovation, he oversaw the public research relationships with governments, strategic partners, startups and universities. He was responsible for the collaboration between the Hasso Plattner Institute and SAP, resulting in HANA. A technology breakthrough, which became a multibillion-dollar business.

In addition to his roles at SAP, he was and is an executive board member in selected national and international organizations, such as the MIT Supply Chain Technology Advisory Board in Boston (2012 – 2014), Connected Living Organization in Berlin (2013 – present), Biodiversity Institute of Ontario in Canada (2014 – 2018), Muenchener Kreis (2014 – 2016), and the GTARC- Research Center in Berlin and Istanbul as its CEO since 2012.

Between 2014 and 2017, Cafer was the Chairmen of the European Technology Platform NESSI in Brussels. It is a platform – dedicated to Software, Services and Data – with over 450 member organizations to unite the industry, startups, research and academia.

Cafer started his career in 1995 as a software engineer for data management at SAP in Germany. From 1997-1999 he was the responsible program lead for implementing BW, a data warehouse solution, at SAP. In 2000, he moved to Silicon Valley joining a startup for digital marketplaces in Palo Alto, California. Two years later, in 2002, the startup was merged into SAP. He continued staying in California for six more years and served as the link between the vibrant Silicon Valley ecosystem and Germany to transform SAP with new business models and innovations.

Cafer has a German Diploma in computer science, is a certified project manager from Stanford University and is certified in Design Thinking from the HPI D-School.

He is a core member and part of the leadership team at World Innovations Forum Foundation.

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Hiep (Phi) Nguyen

Founder of sPhoton Technology

Session Title: Innovate Startup Presents – Pitch 7
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 11:25 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

sPhoton provides an enterprise chat application with a built-in virtual assistant. We are targeting non-tech enterprises that are using personal chat applications such as Facebook Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp, Skype for their internal communication.

By the virtual assistant, sPhoton helps users on the platform on their daily activity for example: task reminding, work reporting, searching for internal information, and so on.

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Emmanuel Leslie

Co-Founder & CEO TalentsinAfrica.com

Session Title: Innovate Startup Presents – Pitch 8
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 11:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Emmanuel Leslie Addae is the Co-Founder/CEO of TalentsinAfrica & Africa Skills Hub. He is one of Ghana’s young successful entrepreneurs and the curator/founder of TEDxAccra and Africa Dialogues. In November 2017, he was named the Social Entrepreneur for the year in Ghana and in 2018, he was ranked among 50 Young CEO’s in Ghana.

He started his first company in 2011 called QualityRole Ghana, a consulting firm, focusing on business restructuring, business financing and strategies right after his first degree. He sold the right to a Dubai Company called QualityRole Dubai for an undisclosed amount.

In 2013, he co-founded a start-up called Promobile GH with Daniel Antwi with a little over $1000. Less than a year, they made over $250k in revenue and later sold their stake to a local software company for an undisclosed amount but according to an insider, they made little over $1.5M.

The breakthrough came in 2014, with the decision to curate TEDx event in his community Labone. To Leslie’s astonishment, the event quickly began to go viral. He was the recipient of the scholarship for 2014 TEDGlobal Conference. Leslie is passionate about entrepreneurship, development, capacity building, social change, digital innovations, ideas worth spreading and lasting creating solutions.

In 2016, Leslie and his long-standing partner Daniel founded People Initiative Foundation d/b/a Africa Skills Hub with the main focus of building skilled African youth as agents of change and later in 2017 started a skill Assessment platform called www.talentsinafrica.com

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Christella Uwamahoro

Rwanda Country Ambassador

• Operations Manager at Yego
• Access to Finance Facilitator at Rwanda ICT Chamber

Session Title: Rwanda – Entrepreneurs & Innovation Ecosystem Introduction
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 11:55 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Christella Uwamahoro is currently a Operations Manager at Yego Innovision and access to Finance Manager at Rwanda ICT Chamber.

Over the last several years, she has been working in the Rwandan Innovation and Technology ecosystem, designing and implementing digital innovation projects and programs to support technology startups.

She holds a Bachelor’s of Information Science and a Master of Science in Project Management from Mount Kenya University and the University of Kigali.

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Karim Raffa

Director of Strategy and Ventures at Digi-Group

Session Title: Company Valuation
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 24th at 12:10 PM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Karim is the Director of Strategy and Ventures at Digi-Group, a Venture-Builder focused on Fintech and Core Banking Technology.

His career in finance started in 2013 with as a broker in London and he moved to Singapore in 2015 where he started working for Tethys (now acquired by Blue Fire AI) as the Director of Operations.

Karim branched out into independent consulting in 2017, offering consulting services to startups and SMEs. In 2018, Digi-Group approached Karim to launch its’ Venture Builder; he now manages projects ranging from treasury systems in tier 3 banks to a government grant management system. He designed the Venture Builder’s methodology and the capital structure, managed key stakeholders and partners and is currently raising $10M for one venture’s pre-A.

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Eunice Nyandat

Kenya Country Ambassador

• CEO & Founder of MBM Africa

Session Title: Kenya – Entrepreneurs & Innovation Ecosystem Introduction
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 9:05 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Eunice is the brains behind MBM Africa, a parent company of three companies MBM the marketing firm, MBM Labs, that helps the youth commercialize their ideas and MBM Skills, that aids the youth in upskilling, apprenticeship and eventual job placement and idea commercialization. She cofounded SWWE Kenya, foundation that educates women on entrepreneurship and provided supports service. She is a technology enthusiast and a mentor of women in entrepreneurship, and girls in STEM. Eunice envisions an Africa where it’s youth thrive and not just survive.

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Christophe Forsinetti

Founder and Chairman of OBOR Capital, a frontier markets Venture Capital firm

• Currently Managing Director of SET listed Strategic Hospitality REIT
• Previously setup and developed financial institutions in South East Asia, Africa and Latin America
• Holding both French and Cambodian citizenships

Session Title: Financing & Funding Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 9:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Christophe is the Founder and Chairman of OBOR Capital, a VC focused on Asian frontier markets.

A serial entrepreneur, Christophe has established, invested and/or led the development of a dozen companies in various sectors such as Microfinance, Waste Management, Water Treatment and other Financial Services in South East Asia over the past 12 years.

Christophe is today the Managing Director of Strategic Hospitality REIT listed on the Thai Stock Exchange.

Prior to this, Christophe led the development of Banks and other Non Bank Financial Institutions in emerging markets throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia, the latest being GroupLease which he developed in the Mekong region and turned into the leading leasing company in Cambodia with 160+ branches and 650 employees.

Christophe is French/Cambodian and holds an international Finance BA from IPAG France and a Research Master in geopolitics from University of Paris 8.

LinkedIn
Obor Capital Website

Thomas Kern

Managing Partner at Kern & Partner

Session Title: Financing & Funding Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 9:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Thomas Kern holds a master in computer science from ETH Zürich and an EMBA from HSG St. Gallen. In 2003 Thomas founded an independent company to provide advisory, business development and project management services to early-stage and growth companies active in the high-tech sector by leveraging the lean startup methodology. In current client relationships Thomas leads several digital transformation initiatives for major financial institutions with the objective to optimise innovation processes and apply design thinking together with agile software development to capture the business value of the digital transformation.

In 2015 Thomas co-founded the Swiss Fintech Angels (SFA) initiative and in 2016 he won the support of a two years grant by CTI the federal innovation promotion agency responsible for encouraging science-based innovation in Switzerland. To implement SFA Thomas decided to join the Swiss ICT Investor Club (SICTIC) as a board member. In the 4 years tenure as active board member Thomas helped grow the SICTIC investor community from 30 to over 350 investors. This was achieved by successfully executing the SFA implementation plan and helping SICTIC to structure a better deal-flow by organizing thematic events to match selected startups with smart money investors.

With his volunteering engagements Thomas has the objective to help grow and strengthen the fintech, blockchain and crypto ecosystem in Switzerland and worldwide. In addition to his current advisory and client mandates Thomas is interested to continuing support startups as advisor, mentor or board member.

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NGUYEN Viet Duc

Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Innovation Capital Management

• Senior Advisor Board at Startup Vietnam Foundation

Session Title: Financing & Funding Podium Discussion
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 9:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Nguyen Viet Duc is the CEO of investment management, Chief Risk Officer, Investment Directors and strategic senior board member in different financial institutions (startup, M&A, private equity, banks, financial investment, securities firms, insurance) with more than 12 years in banking, finance, investment and securities experiences.

His key roles and responsibilities include:

• Advising in the areas of finance, investment, strategy and business management. Management Division
• Designing, developing and implementing Risk Management Framework and Risk Management System for Credit, Market and Operational risks complying with International requirements.
• Multidimensional Profit Analysis and Risk appetite developing.

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Mutembei Kariuki

Co-Founder at Fastagger

Session Title: Innovate Startup Presents – Pitch 9
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 10:00 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

“Fastagger is a platform that provides image annotation services to AI-driven companies. Our goal is to accelerate AI applications by providing access to high-quality data enhanced by human interaction.

We help companies doing AI save time, noting that it would take 10,000 hours for a small startup team of 10 people to label 1,000,000 images required for their deep learning model.

Our clients have access to better data for their training models through our carefully managed image annotation services.”

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Peter Muchemi

Founder and MD of Megashift Technologies Ltd.

Session Title: Innovate Startup Presents – Pitch 10
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 10:15 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

We have developed a cloud Payroll and HR software for the African market. The software is offered as a service therefore no upfront costs incurred making it very affordable for medium enterprises in Kenya and East Africa. It also supports remote working as employees can access it from any where as long as they have internet.

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Prof. Dr. Matthes Fleck

Director of the Institute of Communication & Marketing at University of Applied Science & Art, in Lucerne, Switzerland (HSLU)

Session Title: Innovation Education in Emerging Countries
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 10:30 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Prof. Dr. Matthes Fleck is director of the Institute of communication and Marketing (IKM), Professor for digital business. Prof Fleck holds a Phd. from the University of St. Gallen. His research focus is on peer-to-peer networks, digital innovation management and platform economy. Since 2015 he is working in cooperation with Society 3 and is a board member of the World Innovation Forum as well as Society3.

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Emmanuel Ndonga

Head Of Digital at Zuriel Limited

Session Title: The Development Of Africa
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 10:45 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Emmanuel is a marketing enthusiast with a passion for thought-provoking discussions surrounding The Future Of Africa and the Influence of The Ongoing Digital Revolution Among The Youth.

Emmanuel is currently working on a social-impact program that aims at reducing the digital divide gap in Africa through equipping 350,000 individuals across Africa with modern digital literacy skills.

Emmanuel is the Co-Host of The Zuriel Show a Business and Marketing Podcast aims to be the #1 Business Podcast in Africa. The Zuriel Podcast features thought leaders from around the world that share their stories and provide phenomenal words of wisdom.

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Ashwin Ravichandran

Managing Director of MEST Africa

Session Title: African Entrepreneurship Space
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 11:05 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Ashwin joined MEST in 2015 as a Technology Teaching Fellow and has since served as the Incubator Manager for MEST Accra and Director of Portfolio Support and Country Director of Ghana. With a background in Computer Science and Engineering and previous experience working in the innovation team at Honeywell and building startups in India, Ashwin brings extensive technical knowledge to his executive management experience at MEST.

Due to his incredible value and support which was evident in his invaluable mentorship in the career paths of the Entrepreneurs-In-Training and fellows, he climbed up the ladder to become the Managing Director of MEST Africa in 2019. Ashwin is greatly inspired to nurture and guide the African entrepreneurship Space with a talented team so that these entrepreneurs can take on new challenges.

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Binay Raut

CEO & Co-Founder of Paaila Technology & Naulo Restaurant

Session Title: Startup Success Story
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 11:25 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Raut has great expertise in developing, improving and highlighting niche markets that provide real-time-solution as per customers need. Under his guidance, the expertise team have also initiated a sister company, NAULO in the heart of Kathmandu-Durbarmarg. His main ideology was to deploy the inbuilt products and implement the state-of-the-art technology to educate its customers. He was also successful in deploying PARI V 1.0 and PARI V 2.0 for SBI Bank, one of the most successful banking projects till date. It is considered as the first humanoid robot made in Nepal for banking assistance and also the first to get deployed amongst all branches of SBI around the world. Apart from this under his visionary leadership, PAAILA technology has successfully earned the best industry (technology) award at the 13th International trade fair and innovative technology exhibition award-2017. Also, the company was awarded the Business Creative Cup in 2018 and was a representative from Nepal to Copenhagen. Adding further, the government of Nepal recently handed over the ICT innovative product of the year-2019 to PAAILA technology. Further have exported the first electronic product 2 units of service robots to Houston Texas from Nepal in November 27, 2019. In this ongoing pandemic COVID-19, the vision has shifted towards innovation of healthcare products Ventilators, disinfection robots, nursing bots also agenda on Make in Nepal.

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Charles Nader

CEO of Doc.com

Session Title: Startup Success Story
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 11:40 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

Charles Nader had always been passionate about medicine and helping people in need. That is what compelled him to pursue a medical degree at Anahuac University. As a medical student in Mexico City, he knows how difficult it was for poor people to get proper medical assistance.

As a result, this didn’t just inspire him to continue his medical education but also awakened a desire to do something to rectify the situation. His vision above all was to create a single universal platform that contained reliable and unbiased medical information.

Nader is a serial entrepreneur who has worked for a large number of interesting and unique business ideas. His biggest passion project is Doc.com, which he launched with his university colleague Isao Hojyo. He then ventured to establish Doc Health US, which is a 24/7 telemedicine service. It connects patients to medical professionals all around the world from an app on their phone.

When these services became successful, he finally started Doc Emotions US, which provides patients with mental health concerns 24/7 support. All of these platforms utilize modern technology to ensure everyone has access to proper healthcare. He believes in free and standard healthcare to all is the best way to improve the quality of life across the board. He aims to use both Blockchain technology and AI to reach his goals in this field.

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MacCarthy Mac-Gbathy

Ghana Country Ambassador

• Director of Founder Institute Tamale, Ghana
• Serial Entrepreneur| Innovation Consultant | Policy Advocacy Specialist

Session Title: Ghana – Entrepreneurs & Innovation Ecosystem Introduction
Date & Time: Thursday, June 25th at 11:55 AM CEST

Meet the Speaker:

MacCarthy is a young Entrepreneur who oversees 40 startups since 2013 and has founded HOPin Academy to serve the entrepreneurial and startup scene in Ghana, precisely Northern Ghana.

He serves on the executive council of the Ghana Hubs Network which has over 50 hubs network members in 10 regions of Ghana as the Communications Director. MacCarthy has left a footprint by providing direct employment and entrepreneurial training opportunities to hundreds of youths around the country. His strong will and commitment to seeing society a better place are evident in the numerous opportunities he has provided for himself and countless youths. He is also the founder of HOPin Tech Solutions, M&Mxpress Travel, and Tour, and Agri Transportas all of which provides unique solutions and employs innovative approaches towards identifying and solving pertinent societal problems He advises on Entrepreneurship policies to the Ghanaian government and other stakeholders and policy influencers in Ghana, Mostly working with the Ministry for Business Development in the country. He travels a lot to both African and European nations to network, dialogue, learn and advise on entrepreneurship, business, technological inclusion, and the growing innovation.

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