Patrícia Gomes is an ex-GM from an international company, who left the corporate business to dedicate her time to the new economy of startups and technology. She is passionate about changing the world and believes in using exponential technology to solve the global grand challenges. With her purpose, she will lead the increase of the Singularity Cape Town community!

Currently, she is a PM for Square Capital, Square’s lending arm and largest alternative lender in the US. For the past 2 and half years, she’s focused on building a lending platform, enabling Square Capital to serve US-based small businesses (via direct marketing or partners such as Weebly, Invoice2go and eBay). Prior to Square, Patricia was part of Framed Data, a predictive analytics startup backed by YCombinator & Google Ventures that was acquired by Square.

Outside of Square, she spends most of her spare time working with founders of early-stage startups across B2B enterprise software, biotech, cryptography… Most recently, she’s been spending a lot of time drilling into Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, and setting up her own Lightning node using a Raspberry Pi.

Tanya Knowles is the Managing Executive of Fractal Solutions, a Division of Strate (Pty) Ltd. Fractal Solutions is tasks with the research and development of disruptive technologies, including blockchain / distributed ledger technology. Strate is South Africa’s authorised Central Securities Depository providing electronic settlement of securities concluded on various stock exchange in the country. Tanya is Chair of the South African Financial Markets Blockchain Consortium representing close to 50 of the country’s largest financial institutions.

She is currently completing her certification in blockchain technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and holds a BA, PDM, and MBA all from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Having presented across four continents, Tanya is a well-renowned speaker and thought leader in her area of expertise. In her private capacity, Tanya is involved in a number of women’s leadership and mentoring initiatives aimed at professional business women.

Mic believes that the future will be abundant as the power and potential of exponential technologies increase and their price gradually drop to zero, ultimately democratising numerous industries and improving the lives of all.

As co-founder of Mann Made – an award-winning experiential brand agency that has worked with top global and local Fortune 500 companies – Mic Mann has 19 years of experience in the media, marketing and eventing industry. Mic is a prolific speaker and strategist on exponential technologies, the future of work and the changing role of professionals.

After completing the Singularity University Executive Programme in 2015, he realised that in order to #futureproofAfrica we need to embrace exponential technologies. He subsequently brought the SingularityU South Africa Summit – the first of its kind on the continent – to South Africa. Mic’s passions are entrepreneurship and break-through technologies. He is also involved in the local start-up and maker community.

As the Managing Director of SqwidNet, Phathizwe Malinga is responsible for building an IoT connectivity business in South Africa in partnership with International IoT giant SIGFOX.

In addition to his Managing Director role, he will continue overlooking the solutions division for SqwidNet, a fully owned subsidiary of Dark Fibre Africa. Malinga has made a natural transition into the role of leading SqwidNet because of the various leadership roles he has fulfilled over the years. 

He is no stranger to the role of a strategist, as he consulted with both Max Healthcare and Life Healthcare Group in his previous position with the organisation. He has been involved in the information technology and telecommunication industry for over two decades, having held senior management level positions.

Before joining SqwidNet, Malinga was the Head of Application Strategy at Life Healthcare Group, and he was in charge of the IT Application strategy and Software Development for the group. Phathizwe completed his Executive MBA from the Graduate School of Business, Cape Town. He continues to guest lecture with the university and he sits on the board of Bizmod Consulting. Malinga is a Singularity University Faculty Candidate.

Sarah-Anne has 15-years’ experience in education and a track record of successful startups and leadership of entrepreneurial ventures within organisations. Her experience spans entrepreneurship, strategy, corporate innovation, education, management and business development.

Sarah-Anne is passionate about developing solutions and working with inspired people who have a commitment to make great things. She values people development, collaboration, experimentation and making a difference towards global sustainable development challenges.

Originally trained as a designer, Sarah-Anne’s experience was in the Media and Publishing industry within research and development, new product planning and project management for the Penguin Group London. Sarah-Anne subsequently founded the Solution Space, an incubator for early-stage startups, at the UCT Graduate School of Business. Sarah-Anne has also consulted and provided strategic advice to a variety of clients, from private investors on feasibility studies, to corporates on innovation and entrepreneurship. 

Sarah-Anne holds an MBA from University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, and a BA (Hons) from Central Saint Martins, University of London.

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Andrea is Co-Managing Partner of Knife Capital, a Venture Capital Fund Manager with offices in Cape Town and London. In South Africa, Knife Capital manages KNF Ventures, a S12J VCC.

Before joining Knife Capital Andrea was Founder and Co-Managing Partner of Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa. Fascinated by growth, Andrea is actively involved in working with companies and entrepreneurs to master the growth journey. In 2013 Knife Capital launched its own Growth Accelerator, Grindstone, a later-stage business accelerator to assist entrepreneurs to solve the problems common to scale-ups.

Andrea holds an MBA from Henley Management College and a M.Com from Technical University Aachen, Germany.

Rupert has founded and been involved with several tech startups. His focus has been on B2C double sided marketplaces. Product validation, user adoption, scaling, user growth and pricing strategy are his key expertises.

Currently, Rupert is the head of business at SnapScan. He is part of the exco which shapes the brand’s strategy as well as leading the sales, marketing and business development ventures.

Wendy Pienaar heads up an area in Standard Bank called Emerging Payments.  This area is responsible de-hyping, de-mystifying and de-risking new payment innovations for the Group.  Currently this area focuses on new card technologies, person to person payments, digital wallets like Snapscan in South Africa and SlydePay in Ghana.  In addition, this team is investigating fascinating new technology such as Blockchain.

Wendy has been working in Financial services for the past 21 years with a focus on strategy, customer experience and digital banking. Before Standard Bank, she worked for Accenture, a global management consulting firm.

She is passionate about people, is surrounded by her supportive family (Ian and 4 girls), loves dogs and water skiing.

Head Digital Payment Wallets Standard Bank

Developing and implementing the strategy for mobile acceptance across the African continent including SnapScan, MasterPass and SlydePay. With key responsibility of defining and driving the Group strategy for Mobile Money Enablement as well as Push Payments across the continent.

Responsible for driving the ecommerce card acquiring strategy. Launching of MasterPass in RSA and setting the strategy for Standard Bank. Conceptualising and launching BluMobi for Standard Bank.

As the Chief Digital and Innovation Officer for Deloitte Africa, Valter Adão leads a team of diverse specialists that create leading digital ecosystems to assist clients and employees understand the Digital Transformation journey, uplift their digital experiences and become digital at the core, in order to thrive in a world of ever changing digital technologies.

By bringing in strategic and innovative thinking and capabilities at the intersect of emerging and exponential technologies and creative design, Valter and his team guide organisations to understand, and embrace emerging exponential and disruptive technologies by helping them move beyond potential disruption towards creating new opportunities for relevance, growth and expansion.

He is a corporate entrepreneur with extensive experience in creating new businesses across a variety of industries. He works with organizations in identifying high value, innovative opportunities, and rapidly commercialising them into viable businesses.

Valter holds an MSc and an MBA. He has been with Deloitte for 9 years.  Valter is also a member of Deloitte’s Global Innovation Executive Committee and is the Life Sciences & Healthcare Industry Leader for Deloitte Africa

Tanya Knowles is the Managing Executive of Fractal Solutions, a Division of Strate. She has held various positions at Strate including Head of the Project Management Office, Strategy, International Relations, Marketing and Human Resources. Fractal Solutions focuses on blockchain and distributed ledger technology, cryptoassets, fintech disruption and new products and services for Strate. Situated in Illovo, Sandton, Strate is South Africa’s authorised Central Securities Depository providing electronic settlement of equities and bonds transactions concluded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In her private capacity, Tanya is a member of the Vuleka Schools Board, Strate Charity Shares and former Chairman of the Jeppe High School for Girls Association. She is involved in a number of women’s leadership and mentoring initiatives aimed at professional business women. She holds a BA, PDM and MBA Degree all from the University of the
Witwatersrand.

Dr. Nick Walker, is a scientist, entrepreneur and venture builder. He received his PhD from UKZN, with a research focus in muscle stem cell biology and has been working as a venture builder at Next Biosciences since 2016. He is a graduate of Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program in 2016 where he founded Muzi, a decentralised HIV screening platform. Nick is also the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at OneBio, the first pan-African biotech business incubator.

Dr Jody Rusch works for the National Health Laboratory Services in the Division of Chemical Pathology at the University of Cape Town, Groote Schuur Hospital and Red Cross Children’s Hospital Metabolic Disease and Chemistry Laboratory. After leaving school he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Physiotherapy at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), and worked in physiotherapy for a number of years, before returning to WITS to complete his MBBCH. He worked at Victoria Hospital (Wynberg), and the Institute for Maritime Medicine (Simon’s Town) before accepting a post in Chemical Pathology. His interests include biomedical innovation, the gut microbiota, metabolism, and healthspan. He has published on the gut microbiota, and been invited to speak at numerous conferences and events on this fascinating topic. He has been invited to chair “The GUT Microbiome and Metabolism” Symposium at the 2018 International Congress of Endocrinology (ICE 2018) in Cape Town later this year. Before settling in Cape Town, he has lived and worked in England and Japan.