3.1. Profiles of Speakers

Gillian Marcelle Gillian Marcelle has been active in the telecommunications and ICT policy arena for the past 12 years. She has worked as an academic, a regulator, in the private sector and as a consultant to NGOs, private sector companies, national governments and international organisations. Gillian is a member of the High Level Panel advising the United Nations on ICT and development issues in preparation for the 55th session of the General Assembly. Gillian trained as an economist at the University of the West Indies, and obtained an MBA from George Washington University. She is currently reading for a Dphil in Science and Technology Policy at Sussex University.

Bill Melody Bill Melody is Course Director of the Master of Business Telecommunications programme, and the Telecom Regulatory Training programme at Delft University, the Netherlands. He is also Guest Professor and Chair, International Advisory Board, Centre for Teleinformation, Technical University of Denmark. Professor Melody is editor contributing authority to Telecom Reform, which is used in more than 100 countries for education and training, He is also editor of the journal Telecommunications Policy.

Peter Benjamin Consultant: Learning Information Networking and Knowledge (LINK) Centre, Graduate School of Public Development, University of the Witwatersrand. Peter has qualified for a BSc Physics (Hons), Oxford University and MSc Information Technology, De Montford University, UK. He is currently registered for a PhD in Community use of ICT with scholarship from Aalborg University, Denmark.

Some publications: • Community Development and Democratisation through Information Technology, in Richard Heeks (ed.) Reinventing Government in the Information Age, Routledge, London, 1998. • Multi-purpose Community Centres in South Africa, NITF, Johannesburg, 1998. • Telecentres in South Africa, In Hmgombelo (ed.) Telecommunications for Business in Africa, IOS Press, Amsterdam, 1997.

Experience in training: • Telecommunication Policy and Regulation • Management of IT for Government (for Government officials) • Management of telecentres (for Universal Service Agency) • IT for research and policy analysis • Project management and Information system design • Basic Information Literacy (for community organisations) • PC packages including Word, MS Project, E-mail, Web searching, PowerPoint, Excel • Computer programming.

Summary of relevant experience: • Peter worked as Software Engineer (in C and Modula-Z0 with British Telecom on maritime telephony projects, 1989 - 1990. • Peter was involved with the Manchester Host information system, working from 190 to 1994 in a co-operative offering telematics services - electronic communications and information in a worldwide network. This service was offered primarily to community groups in Manchester, UK. • From 1994 to 1995 he was Project Manger of the capacity building unit of SANCO (Gauteng). His role involved needs analysis, planning, designing, delivery and evaluation of various training courses and workshops for SANCO. • From 1995 to 1996 he was the Co-ordinator of the Secretariat Gauteng RDP Core Group. This role involved the co-ordination of the logistics, consultation and managerial aspects of organising the Vista 2 conference on community organisation for the RDP. • From 1996 to 1998, Peter was the co-project leader of a research programme into Multipurpose Community Centres sponsored by the IDRC. • Peter was seconded from October 1997 to March 1998 to the Universal Service Agency as Senior Manager: Administration. He was involved in internal management and support for the telecentre implementation planning and relations with the Department of Communications. • He has been actively involved in the National Information Technology Forum, the South African secretariat for the Information Society and Development conference and is involved with a large range of community computing initiatives.

Meddie Mayanja Meddie Mayanja ([email protected]) is the project officer of Nakaseke Multi-purpose community Telecentre in rural a community in Uganda. He was involved in the startup of the Telecentre and establishment of its applications to date.

Mr. Mayanja has written and presented several papers on ICTs and rural access. He has also published articles on the potential of ICTs as catalysis in Africa development and the lessons learnt from Nakaseke Telecentre. He is a member of the ICT Policy Task Force in Uganda and also serves on the Telecentre Reference Group. He is a social scientist by profession.

Mike Jensen Mike Jensen is an independent consultant with experience in over 33 countries in Africa, assisting in the establishment of information and communications systems over the last 15 years. A South African, based in Port St Johns in the East Cape, he sent his first email 20 years ago while studying rural planning and development in Canada.

He subsequently returned to South Africa to work as a journalist in Johannesburg and then moved back to Canada in 1985 where he co-founded the country’s national Internet service for NGOs, called coincidentally, The Web.

Mr Jensen is a trustee of the African IT Education Trust, was part of the support team on the African Connection Rally last year and was a member of the African Conference of Ministers High Level Working Group which developed the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) in 1996.

Aki Stavrou Aki Stavrou has been a development researcher and policy analyst with 15-years of professional experience in the private, academic and NGO sectors, working in: development policy analysis; social, economic and marketing research; development monitoring and projection evaluation. Aki has designed, co-ordination and implementation the above in the academic, non-governmental and private sectors. Between 1987 and 1997 worked extensively on Social Policy in the Telecommunications Sector in South Africa.

Over the past 15 years he has written extensively on development issues and presented papers at various international fora. He has also been involved in four Green and White paper processes in telecommunications, broadcasting and E-commerce in South Africa. He has been an advisor to National Government Ministries in South Africa (Communications) and Swaziland (Economic Affairs and Tourism). He is currently involved with the Organisation of African Unity, UNICEF and a number of other international organisations on a programme to eradicate the use of Child Soldiers in armed conflict. International experience includes: development research and policy analysis work in Southern, Central and Eastern Africa, (incl. The Indian Ocean Islands) and market research in Southern and Eastern Asia and North/Central Europe. Aki who has a Masters Degree in Development Studies, is currently Managing Partner at DRA-Development, a development research and policy analysis think tank. He is also a Research Associate at the LINK Centre, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of Witwatersrand and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the school of Development Studies, Department of Architecture and the University of Natal.

Esme Modisane Ms Esme Modisane is from Mamelodi Community Information Services (MACIS), a telecentre based in Mamelodi township, outside Pretoria.

Tel: +27 12 805 1294 Fax: +27 12 805 1293 Mobile: 082 930 0267 e-mail: [email protected]

Alison Gillwald Alison Gillwald is the director of Learning Information Networking and Knowledge Centre at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management , Wits University. Prior to starting the Centre which had run as the successful ICT for Development Programme for a number of years, Alison served on the inaugural Council of the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA). Before being appointed to the Council, Alison established the Policy Department at the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Alison has lectured in Politics and Journalism for many years and was also a journalist and sub-editor on the Rand Daily Mail and Sowetan among other titles.

Anton Harber Anton Harber, 41, was founder of the Weekly Mail newspaper, now the Mail & Guardian, which he edited for 12 years. He previously worked as a journalist on The Sunday Post, The Sowetan and the Rand Daily Mail, where he was political reporter when it was closed in 1985. He was then part of the small group of journalists who pooled their retrenchment pay to start The Weekly Mail.

As editor of The Mail & Guardian, he was prosecuted numerous times under the state of Emergency and served with a personal restriction order. He was co-editor of the paper when it was closed briefly by the government in 1988 and led the legal battle against closure and numerous incidents of confiscation of the newspaper by the state.

In 1988, Harber was a joint winner of the Pringle Award, the premier South African award for contributions to press freedom. In 1995, The Mail & Guardian was named Newspaper of the Year at the International Press Directory Awards, and Harber was cited in the International Editor of the Year category.

In 1984, Harber was vice-president of the South African Society of Journalists. He served as an executive member of the SA Press Council in 1994/5, the Freedom of Expression Institute in 1993/4 and the Anti-Censorship Action Group in 1988-1994. He was chairman of the South African Conference of Editors for 1996 and co-chaired a task group with the Black Editors Forum which in October 1996 brought both bodies into a new umbrella editors’ body, the South African National Editor’s Forum.

Harber edited The A-Z of South African Politics (Penguin 1994 and 1995) and has contributed to a number of other books, newspapers and magazines including Newsweek, the New York Times, The Guardian and Leadership Magazine.

In 1996, Harber put together a consortium to bid for privatised radio licenses, a group which was the only one to win two licenses. This group was brought into Kagiso Media, a JSE-listed company, where Harber is now CEO of Kagiso Broadcasting. Harber is currently leading the launch of a major new Internet publishing initiative within the Kagiso group.

He is chairperson of the National Association of Broadcasters, a member of the boards of South African Advertising Research Foundation, the Media Industry Trust and the Advertising Standards Authority. Harber is married to TV producer and director Harriet Gavshon and has two children.

Neël Smuts Neël Smuts graduated at the University of Stellenbosch in 1963 with degrees B.Sc., B.Eng. (light current) in electrical engineering. He joined the SABC the next year in a career which was mostly involved with the development of new infrastructure but which included operational activities from time to time. He was appointed as Deputy Director General of Technology in 1989 and became responsible for the technological infrastructure of the SABC. With the devisionalisation of the SABC in 1991, he became the Chief Executive of the Signal Distribution Division.

This division was converted into a Companies Act company – Sentech (Pty) Ltd, on 01 October 1992, of which he was appointed Managing Director. Sentech has been separated from the SABC and converted into a State owned commercial enterprise operating as the common carrier for broadcasting signal distribution in South Africa.

He resigned from Sentech on 30 June 2000, to take up his appointment, from July 2000 as Councilor of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.

He is a registered Professional Engineer and a member of the South African Institute for Electrical Engineers. He has travelled extensively and attended many conferences of the ITU, NAB (USA), IBC (UK, Holland), Montreux TV Exhibition, EBU, CBA and SABA. He was a member of the Eminent Persons Group involved in the development of the White Paper on Telecommunications Policy and the 1996 Telecommunications Act and a member of the Stakeholders Committee involved in the development of the White Paper of Broadcasting Policy (1988) and the Broadcasting Act (1989). He is married and has two daughters, a son, and grandchildren.

Alf Karrim 1980 - 1981 SRC – UDW President 1981 - 1984 Community/Political activist (various positions held in community and political organisations) 1981 - 1987 Editor: Ukusa Media Association 1987 - 1989 Research Fellow and then Senior Research Fellow at University of Natal, (Institutional and Economic Development within rural communities) 1989 - 1993 Manager: Economic/Rural development projects in Kwa-Zulu Natal. 1993 - 1995 Director: Management, Access and Planning (An economic consulting firm) 1995 - 1997 Head: Public Education Department, South African Parliament (focus of department was on public/ stakeholder participation in the legislature process and reviewing the law making procedures to facilitate stakeholder involvement in the legislature). 1997 - 1998 Regulatory Affairs Manager: Orbicom 1998 - to date CEO: Orbicom

Charley Lewis Charley Lewis heads the Information Technology Unit of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, where he is responsible for IT policy interaction for the federation, as well as overseeing the technical support function for COSATU and its 8 regions. He also oversees the federation’s e- mail / Internet service and acts as webmaster for its web site.

Charley is one of the representatives of organised labour on South Africa’s National Information Technology Forum (NITF), of which he is currently Deputy Chairperson. He has been involved in a range of Information Society processes and activities, including the National Science and Technology Foresight Project and its ICT Working Group, the SA Acacia Advisory Committee, the SA Information Technology Industrial Strategy Project, the E-commerce policy process. He has presented at several conferences, including the 1996 Information Society and Development (ISAD) Conference, and the Global Knowledge 97 Conference, and was on the panel for the 1998 ILO virtual conference on ICT, Jobs and Work.

Charley is currently completing a Master of Commerce degree in the Management of Information Systems at the University of the Witwatersrand. He also sits as one of the COSATU representatives on the Board of Trustees of the Labour Development Trust. Charley originally studied Civil Engineering, before completing an Honors degree in English at the University of Cape Town. He followed teaching as a career for over 10 years, working in Cape Town and the then newly-independent Zimbabwe.

After deciding on a career change to computing some 10 years ago, a Van Zyl & Pritchard course led him to programming and systems analysis work at AECI and ABSA, before he joined COSATU to co-ordinate the METRIC Information Technology Project, which subsequently became COSATU’s Information Technology Unit. He is married, with two sons, both of whom - although avid PC games fanatics - are thankfully still too young to be either web surfers or labour activists.

Tana Pistorius Tana Pistorius is an Associate Professor of Law in the Department of Mercantile Law in the University of South Africa. She holds the degrees BA (Pret) LLB (Unisa) LLM LLD (Pret). Before joining the University, she practised as an attorney and notary. Her fields of specialization include intellectual property law, legal aspects of electronic commerce, and Internet law. She has published extensively on a wide range of topics, and has delivered papers at many national and international conferences. She is currently writing a book on legal aspects of electronic commerce.

Address: Department of Mercantile Law, University of South Africa, PO Box 392, Pretoria, 0003 Phone numbers: (012) 429-8487 (w); (083) 258-9130 (cell) Fax number: (012) 429-3343 E-mail address: [email protected]

Marelie Davel [email protected], Tel +27 (0)12 841 2466, Fax +27 (0)12 841 2657 P.O. Box 395 Pretoria 0001

Marelie Davel has been involved in the field of Information Security since 1995, when she started her career at the CSIR’s Division of Information and Communications Technology (icomtek). She has both practical and research experience in fields such as cryptography, network security, biometrics, system vulnerability and risk assessments and has a strong interest in the related concepts of identity and trust. In 1999 she formed part of the working group who developed the Security & Privacy section of the national discussion paper on Electronic Commerce. Marelie holds a BSc Honors degree in Computer Science from the University of Stellenbosch and a MSc degree in Information Security from the University of London, both awarded with distinction.

Tracey Cohen [email protected] Tracy Cohen is a senior lecturer at the LINK Centre, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, Wits University, Johannesburg. Ms Cohen is also a regulatory advisor to the Internet Service Provider’s Association. Prior to joining LINK, Ms Cohen was an Assistant to Council at the South Africa Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA). She is an executive committee member of the Freedom of Expression Defence Fund (FXDF) and has a Masters in Law (LLM) focussing on the regulation of content on the Internet. Ms Cohen is currently a visiting graduate research fellow at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University, studying comparative policy on convergence and regulation. She was a recent panelist on UNESCO’s “Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age” at the Global Knowledge II conference in Malaysia. Ms Cohen will be pursuing Doctoral studies at the University of Toronto, commencing in September 2000.

Meryem Marzouki Meryem Marzouki is a senior researcher in Microelectronics with the French National Public Research Center (CNRS). As part of her volunteering activities, she is the co-founder and president of the French NGO named IRIS (Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire). Formerly, she was the co-founder and president of the first French organization of Internet users, the Association des Utilisateurs d’Internet (AUI).

IRIS’ primary objectives are the promotion of a public service infrastructure for permanent connectivity to the Internet, the action in favour of Free speech and privacy, and the promotion of a non-commercial Internet. IRIS is a member of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), and of a French NGO and Trade-Unions Network (R@S).

Since 1998, IRIS has been organizing the French annual forum promoting non-commercial interests and solidarity (‘Assises de l’Internet non marchand et solidaire’, http://www.assises.sgdg.org), and was the co-organizer in 1999 of the 3rd Public Voice in Electronic Commerce conference, in conjunction with the OECD Forum on E-commerce (http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/publicvoice99/).

Meryem Marzouki has authored two IRIS reports (“85 recommendations for a democratic Internet in year 2000”, and “Towards a democratic alternative to Internet co-regulation”), and has given many talks at national, European and international conferences.

Meryem Marzouki’s personal page is at http://www-asim.lip6.fr/~marzouki IRIS web site is at : http://www.iris.sgdg.org

Myron Zlotnick, Legal Adviser Myron graduated BA LLB, LLM, with a Certificate in Telecommunications Policy and Regulation. Mr Zlotnick jointly co-ordinated and drafted the curricula and taught the first Telecommunications Law and Policy courses at a South African law school at both Bachelors and Masters level. He has been exposed to the telecommunication industry in private practice, in litigation, and as teacher and consultant.

Gus Hosein Department of Information Systems, LSE, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, England +44 (0)207 955 6403. Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Relevant Employment Experience: October 1997 - Present Department of Information Systems, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England. Most recently held position: Tutorial Fellow. Lecturer on various courses, at both the undergraduate and post-graduate level, to over 300 students each year. Coordinator and lecturer on the largest course offered by the department, administered teaching material and managed a staff of up to eight class teachers and two lecturers. Developed examinations and marking schemes. Also supervised the progress of MSc students in the completion of their courses and dissertations. Topics lectured include: • Information Society theories and Technology and Society • Privacy and Human Rights, Cryptography Policy • History of Computing: Innovations and Markets • Networks and Network Security (lectured complete post-graduate course) • Change Management and Success and Failures in Implementation June 1998 - Present Zero-Knowledge Systems, Montreal, Canada. Technology Policy Counsel. Researcher to a company that specialises in developing privacy enhancing technologies. Contributions include: • Freedom whitepaper, ver. 1.0 • Analysis of EU and US Data Protection relations, and the role of client-side pseudonym-enabling technologies • Unreviewed and unreleased A Brief Coverage of Anonymity and Animosity, explaining how freedom of speech and anonymity are intertwined human rights. • The Privacy Risks of Public Key Infrastructures, presented at the 21st Data Protection Commissioners Conference. • General policy advice. • Represented as a member of the Canadian delegation to the Paris 2000 G8 Summit on Cybercrime. November 1998 - Present The Foundation for Information Policy Research, London, England. • Advisory Board Member of leading UK Internet policy think-tank. Analyst on UK Cryptography Policy, and generally on human rights issues. Managed the FIPR libraries of consultation and the general documentation on the web site, and presented at and organised various conferences. May 1997 - Present Privacy International, London, England. Deputy Director, Government Technology Policy. Work on planning, strategy, and development initiatives within PI, a grassroots privacy advocacy group. Organised various campaigns and involved in relations with the media, to educate regarding privacy-related issues. June-August 1997 Johnson and Johnson Medical Europe, Bracknell, England. Information Security Consultant and Researcher. Implemented security measures arising from an Internal Audit of a new Europe-wide JD Edwards system. October 1995 - September 1996 University Of Waterloo, Office Of Ethical Behaviour And Human Rights, Waterloo, Canada. Assistant Co-ordinator. Developed a formal and informal conflict resolution structure and mechanism for use within the University on cases of harassment, assault, and discrimination. Also dealt with cases of assault and discrimination throughout the university. Post-Secondary Education Candidate for PhD in Information Systems (1997 - Present), London School Of Economics And Political Science, London, England. The area of research is Technology Policy, and the role of government and economics in regulating technology. Funded by research grants from Microsoft Research, Cambridge and IBM Research, Canada. Other activities related to research • Co-editor and contributor to a British Chambers of Commerce commissioned report on the Economic Impacts of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill. • Speaker at Outlook for Freedom where I presented on cryptography and its applications (public key cryptography, x.509 opportunities and challenges, and anonymity provision through cryptography), Moscow, April 2000. • Ian Brown and Gus Hosein, Serve Yourself... Shifting Power Away from the Brothers, published in the Proceedings of Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2000: Workshop on Freedom and Privacy by Design, Toronto, April 2000. • Guest Speaker at Cambridge University Public Policy Seminar, April 1999, a presentation entitled Security and Privacy - Ethical Delusions and Cautionary Tales. • Presented at IBM Centre for Advanced Studies Conference, December 1998, Mississauga, Canada. • Approached by the Deputy Governor of the Jamaican Central Bank, to co-present to the Jamaican Institute of Bankers at a day long seminar on new issues in Information Systems Management; delivered on August 29, 1998. • Published Consultation and Contemplation - What has Gone Before, a summary of the first UK Cryptography Policy consultation process, in the 1998 Electronic Privacy Information Center Sourcebook.

Guy Berger Present position: Professor and Head of Department, Journalism and Media Studies, , Grahamstown, 6140. Tel. 046 603 8336/7, Fax. 046 622 8447, E-mail: [email protected]

Professor Berger has a BA Hons and a PhD from Rhodes University, and an Honors degree in Communications (with distinction) from the University of South Africa.

As head of the department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes since mid-1994, he has overseen a complete redesign of the curriculum across four journalism-related degrees and has initiated new courses in Arts and Culture Journalism, Media Pedagogy and Leadership, Computer-Assisted Reporting and Research, Media Management and African Media Debates. He secured industry sponsorship for four posts in the department: a Director of the department’s New Media Laboratory (set up under his initiative), a Chair of Economic Journalism, a Chair of Media Transformation, a Cyberpublisher instructor and a Chair of Cyberbroadcasting.

Berger further revived the dormant Biko Bursary Fund for disadvantaged students seeking to study journalism at Rhodes, and has secured donations of 40 new computers for the founding of a Reuters Newsroom in the department, as well as five PowerMac computers and 60 second-hand PCs for general use by students. Berger’s work in the department has also included editing Rhodes Journalism Review, JQ (a quarterly newsletter of the department), and Cue (daily paper during the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown).

Under his leadership, the department now manages an annual award for Courageous Journalism, and three international conferences (on Freedom of Information and on the Internet and African journalism) have been staged since 1994. Prof. Berger was responsible for initiating South Africa’s first scholar newspaper online (as part of a community project run by the department) as well as the country’s first online magazine of university student writings.

In 1998, he was named as one of 50 people to know in New Media by the US-based Online Journalism Review. He initiated a web site for journalism trainers in southern Africa and another for the South African National Editors Forum. In 1998, he was instrumental in the formation of the Broadcast Educators and Trainers Association, and the Print Educators and Trainers Association of South Africa, and in 1999 was made chair of a steering committee representing the country’s heads of departments of journalism and/or communication at technikons and universities.

Prof. Berger is a member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority’s Monitoring & Complaints Committee and the board of the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa. He is also convenor of the Training Committee of the South African National Editors Forum. His views and training skills are frequently sought out by media, companies and government.

Prof. Berger’s research involvements have covered the subjects of Internet and journalism; race and media; government communications; cross ownership in broadcasting; broadcast industry training needs, print journalism teaching programmes; marketing information for newspapers and impact assessment for media sponsorship and media training activities. He has published the book Social Structure and Rural Development in the Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1992), and has had articles published in several South African journals. Prof. Berger has also researched and published the booklet The Internet: a goldmine for editors and reporters”. Much of his work is available at: http://journ.ru.ac.za/staff/berger.htm

His research interests have also covered the fields of Newspaper Discourse, the Alternative Press, Journalism Education, Community Media, Freedom of Information legislation, Broadcast and Internet, Race and the Media.

His media experience includes being editor of New Era magazine and then South weekly newspaper in Cape Town between 1990 and 1994. Before that, he also worked on the Johannesburg daily The Star, founded the black community newspaper Izwi laseRhini - Grahamstown Voice, was diplomatic correspondent on the Morning Star (UK), and served as foreign correspondent for the alternative South African weekly New Nation. Electronic media experience includes setting up and running Afravision - a television production/distribution company based in London, between 1985 and 1990.

Before 1985, Prof. Berger spent two years as media consultant and training officer at Media and Resources Services, Johannesburg, and also was an official in the United Democratic Front’s media committees. He taught in the politics and journalism departments at Rhodes University in 1978-1980. As a result of democratic media activities in these periods, he was jailed as a political prisoner (1980 - 1983), and later forced into exile (1985 - 1990).

Mandla Langa Mandla Langa, born in Durban, 1950, grew up in KwaMashu township, and studied for a BA at the . After being arrested in 1976, he spent 101 days in prison on a charge of trying to leave the country without a permit. He was sentenced, skipped bail, and went into exile in .

He has participated in various arts programmes and conferences through Africa and elsewhere, and has lived in Botswana, , Maputo, , where he did MK military training, , Budapest and London. In 1980 he won the Drum story contest for ‘The Dead Men Who Lost Their Bones’ and in 1991 he was awarded the Arts Council of Great Britain Bursary for creative writing, the first for a South African. He has held various ANC posts abroad, such as Cultural Representative in the UK and Western Europe.

Recently he has been Vice-Chairperson of the successful africa95 Exhibition in London, was a weekly columnist of the Sunday Independent. He was the convenor of the Task Group on Government Communications. Three of his works have been published, Tenderness of Blood (Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1987), A Rainbow on a Paper Sky (Kliptown Books, London, 1989), The Naked Song and Other Stories (David Philip Publishers, Cape Town, 1997). His latest novel The Memory of Stones will be published by DPP in February 2000. His musical opera, Milestones, featured at the Standard Bank Festival in Grahamstown in June 1999. He has been the editor-at-large of Leadership Magazine and the Program Director for television at the SABC. He is the Chairperson of the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

A former board member of the SABC, Mandla Langa sits on the boards of the Business and Arts South Africa (BASA), the Foundation for Global Dialogue (FGD), Horizon Strategies, Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ) and the Rhodes University School for Economic Journalism. He is a trustee of the Nation’s Trust and the South African Screenwriters’ Laboratory (SCRAWL). He also serves as the director to Contemporary African Music and Arts (CAMA).

Nkopane Maphiri Nkopane Maphiri is a founder member and a former station manager of Soweto Community Radio (now known as Jozi FM). The station has been on the forefront of breaking new radio trends in South Africa. In 1996 Nkopane headed the National Community Radio Forum (NCRF) which is a national network organisation of community broadcasters in South Africa. Nkopane holds a B-tech degree in Marketing, a AAA diploma in Media planning and Management as well as a Wits University Information & Telecommunications Policy certificate.

In his capacity as CEO of the NCRF, Nkopane worked extensively internationally with communications organisations. He also compiled several booklets on participatory communications and a booklet on Marketing for Community Radio, which has been used to train community radio marketing teams by the Institute of Advancement of Journalism (IAJ) which is linked to Wits University.

Nkopane also served and still serves on several councils and board. He is currently on the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) Radio Audience Measurement Survey (RAMS) committee.

Michael Schur Michael Schur is an economist with degrees from Wits and London Universities. He is presently a senior manager in the Department of Finance, and was responsible for the management of the National Public-Private Partnership Programme. As such, he has lead a team that has developed policy, legislation and guidelines for the implementation of Public-Private Partnerships in South Africa. Mr. Schur is currently acting head of the PPP Unit, recently established in the Department. Prior to joining the Department, Mr. Schur was a senior consultant at Ernst and Young Management Consulting, where he participated as project manager on a number of infrastructure finance and policy projects.

Simon White Joint Managing Director - Forge Ahead BMI-T B.A (Economics), H.D.E. University of Western Cape

Simon is an ex-teacher in commercial subjects. Simon has been extensively involved in community organisations. Whilst teaching he was involved in setting up an import/export company of which he as the Managing Director. Simon was Managing Director Forge Ahead Conferences, a company that he was instrumental in setting up. Forge Ahead Conferences was South Africa’s first black owned conference and networking company which has been focusing on structural and business issues affecting black business.

Simon is currently the Joint Managing Director of Forge Ahead-BMI-T, a joint venture between Thokoza Investments and BMI TechKnowledge. Simon has been active in developing and promoting initiatives in support of effective black economic empowerment particularly in the ICT sector. Simon is an Executive Member of the Black IT Forum responsible for the secretariat and black economic empowerment black. He is also part of the Small Business Support Committee of the Foresight Project, run under the auspices of the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.

Simon is also a Non-Executive Director of Bahale Holdings which is a company that provides disability consulting. The organisation has a significant shareholder base of disability pressure and interest groups. Simon is assisting and a facilitating the participation of these interest groups in the ICT sector.

Pam Sykes Pam is currently with BusinessMap SA, an independent consultancy offering political and investment analysis and advice to support the strategic decisions of organisations with an interest in Southern Africa. Her focus includes development finance/infrastructure projects and privatisation in SADC, as well as the telecommunications sector.

Alan Hirsch Alan was born in South Africa, educated in South Africa and the US, with degrees in economics and economic history from UCT, Wits, and Colombia University. He also trained at Georgetown University, and was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School form 1998 to 1999. He worked as an economics lecturer and economic development policy research director at the University of Cape Town from 1984 to 1986 and 1989 to 1995. He joined the DTI as Chief Director, Industry and Technology Strategy in 1995. In 1999, after spending a year at Harvard, he returned to the post of Chief Director, Business Regulation and Consumer Services in the DTI. He developed, restructured, and managed a wide range of projects at DTI, from developing supply-side measures and investment incentives, to establishing institutions such as Investment South Africa and the Micro-Finance Regulatory Council.

Alan has been a member of the board of many institutions including the Industrial Development Corporation, the State Tender Board, the National Training Board, and was founding chair of the Trade & Industry Policy Secretariat and Investment South Africa. He has published widely on trade and industry policy issues.