Design Thinking Conference 2015 Speaker announcement

INSPIRE DESIGN THINKING CONFERENCE ©

The "Design Thinking Conference" taking place on the 11th June is aimed at CEO's, MD's and executives across a broad spectrum of the industry with the underlying them of doing things differently and being a disruptor within ones business sector in order to truly innovator a "leapfrog the competition. This includes all aspects from redefining company structure to ambient marketing and game changing strategies. It has been identified world wide that design thinking is essential for a business to truly innovate, from products to processes, risk taking, testing and evaluation with an empathy for the consumer are the underlying principles. The old cliché of "Doing what you did yesterday will not produce better results" is more apt than ever and local companies are starting to grasp this but certainly lacking the guidance or direction. We like to refer to these new business minds that are succeeding in these areas as disruptors and we have a lineup of some real big names speaking across a variety of industries. Our strategic partner with this conference is Fast Company South Africa.




BOOK HERE

Speakers are as follows:
  • Gareth Cliff - Cliff Central
  • Robbie Brozin - Nandos (Flying directly in from Chicago)
  • Rick Treweek - BreakDesign
  • Robbie Stammers - Fast Company
  • Al Stratford - WINTEC Innovation 
  • Callie Merwe - Design Partnership
  • Dave Nemeth - Trend Forward
Hosted by:
Astrid Ascar
Ian Fraser
    _________________________________________________________________________

    Gareth Cliff
    CliffCentral.com




    CliffCentral.com – launched on 1st May 2014 – having taken the leap from traditional terrestrial radio to the future of internet and mobile, Gareth Cliff and team aim to create the pre-eminent “infotainment” online content hub. It’s about sharing in real conversations – everything that happens in our world – everything we all experience every day – makes us think… makes us laugh… makes us cry… makes us angry… inspires us… what makes us human. CliffCentral.com is your home and you can join us wherever you are in the world.

    CliffCentral.com starts the day every weekday morning with The Gareth Cliff Show and his trusted team – Mabale Moloi, Damon Kalvari and Ben Karpinski – uncensored, real conversation about everything in the news, everything that happens in your life and everything we all experience every day, along with first-class guests, edgy material and a healthy dose of humour, intelligence and inspiration.

    Between 09.00 and 15.00 every weekday tune in to various shows hosted by well-known personalities and experts covering a wide range of topics and issues: news with the Daily Maverick journalists; Candid Business with Business Report Editor Ellis Mnyandu; Leadership with Adriaan Groenewald; The CasperRadio Show with Casper de Vries and his team; TG Squared with Trevor Gumbi and Nina Hastie; #BlaqueLife with Tumisho Masha, Monwabisi Thethe and Wilmarie Janse van Rensburg; Womandla! with Phumi Mashigo; SexTalk with Jonti Searll and Sexy Spyda; Laws of Life with Garry Hertzberg; Health Hour with Dr Sindi van Zyl; Talking Tech with Liron Segev and even Keeping Up With The Kalvaris with Damon and Bernice… just to name a few.

    While having some of the most well-known broadcasters, personalities and experts in the CliffCentral.com stable, the aim was to also encompass ordinary people who may never have had an opportunity before to showcase their talents or even just share their areas of interest. To this end, some 1000 live auditions were held during May, yielding amazing results. Every afternoon between 15.00 and 18.00 Kellman on CliffCentral, hosted by young up-and-coming broadcaster Arye Kellman will include guests (and successful auditionees) bringing their particular flavour and engaging with the wider audience with live phonecalls, social media and WeChat messaging.

    The range of conversations include sport, finance, legal, beauty, fashion, ‘The Stars’ – astrology… as well as ‘The Stars’ – celebrity gossip, technology, gaming, youth panels, education, entrepreneurship, health and fitness, love and relationships, social media, inspirational stories, television, movies, lifestyle related topics… everything that is relevant to our audience. There will also be a slot for ongoing auditions so the door remains open to join in. Some of the applicants who are potential talk show hosts will be developed by co-hosting some of the shows in preparation for weekend programming on CliffCentral.com

    Listen live on www.CliffCentral.com and on WeChat: CliffCentral Official Account, broadcasting live from 6am – 6pm and the programming is repeated so you can always catch up later. Alternatively, podcasts are available to listen on demand.

    Robbie Brozin

    Robbie Brozin is a co-founder of chicken fast food chain Nando’s and ran the company for almost 25 years. Now he’s focussing on philanthropic projects.





    Robbie Brozin was born in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, in 1959. The family moved to Johannesburg and he attended high school at King David Linksfield, after which he obtained a BCom from Wits University and then worked for his father selling electronics.
    In 1987, along with his friend Fernando Duarte, Brozin bought Chickenland, an out-of-the-way Portuguese restaurant in Rosettenville. It served everything from fried fish to boiled eggs but the chicken, Robbie said, was the best he’d ever tasted. And, so, Nando’s was born and, along with it, one of life’s great adventures. As chief executive of Nando’s until 2010, he used sheer creativity (and Portuguese-style peri-peri sauce) to take a little restaurant from Rosettenville to the world. Today, Nando’s is loved in America, Australia, the United Kingdom and 20 other countries as diverse as Fiji and Bangladesh. The 1 000-plus outlets are a mix of franchise and directly owned stores.

    Besides his work on philanthropic projects such as Goodbye Malaria, which aims to eradicate malaria in Africa in our lifetimes, Nando’s is still very much a part of Brozin’s focus. He applies his considerable energy to shaping the culture of Nando’s, strengthening its brand, its soul and its reputation as a place for kind, fearless people who don’t take life too seriously. "It’s the people who make the chicken," Robbie always says. That’s why so much of Nando’s culture comes from his conviction that life should be lived in a youthful, eternally optimistic way – and that it is actually possible to “change people’s lives, one chicken at a time”.


    Rick Treweek
    Breakdesign




    Co - Founder of Breakdesign, a mobile development studio based in Singapore. Rick has spent the last 12 years exploring various technologies using design as a driving force. From developing mobile games, interactive installations and gamification strategies for clients through to developing a collection of original games and content, which has over 20 million, downloads to date. Rick is a Maker, Tinkerer, Creative Technologist and Game Maker with a passion for new technologies.

    • Have over 20 million downloads of our own games and content
    • One of the first companies to integrate 3D Printing into a mobile game
    • Have developed games for MTV, Nokia, Samsung, American Express, Johnny Walker and more
    • Locally was flown out as a gamifictaion expert for Vodacom Rugby Two years ago and developed web apps to support this
    • Currently collaborating with one of the worlds leading FDM 3D Print manufacturers
    • Developed a gaming community with over 150 000 registered users
    • Run local specific competitions using our games and platforms around south east Asia where players could win phones, t-shirts and merchandising
    • Various talks and events around Singapore and Malaysia
    Funded by Microsoft in Finland for a game and selected as a top developer for games on Windows Phone.

    Rick Has been involved in 3D Printing for the last 3 years. Looking at 3D printing from a design level, Rick is exploring various cross overs from traditional industries and looking at the influence and change that emerging technologies have on these industries. From creating unlockable 3D Printable toys in mobile games through to 3D Scanning and visualising ideas using 3D Printing, often resulting in new first to market ideas and concepts. Currently Rick is creating mobile games, has a 3D Toy brand called Trobok Toys and is currently setting up a South African focused company called "African Robot", exploring emerging technologies and their integration into current creative industries. Rick also holds monthly 3D Printing meetups and workshops in Johannesburg.

    Robbie Stammers
    Fast Company




    Robbie Stammers has been in the magazine industry for twenty years and is the Publishing Editor and MD of Insights Publishing. Insights, produces The Intrepid Explorer magazine and recently launched the South African version of Fast Company magazine, which won Best magazine in in the USA in 2014.

    Previously, he was Editor-in-Chief of Leadership magazine, one of the oldest and most prestigious magazines in the country for five years. During the course of his career, he has also launched and successfully ran customer magazines for companies such as the Pam Golding Group, Microsoft SA, Avis, American Express Travel, Guinness UDV and the South African Medical Association to name but a few. He was also the magazine publisher for SARU (South African Rugby Union) and WPRFU (Western Province and the Stormers) for many years and was the founder and publisher of the consumer title CAPE ETC. Robbie has won a total of 15 PICA awards (including Best Business Editor of the year on two occasions) and 3 international TABBIE awards. He also won Customer Editor of the Year in 2013. Robbie also co-runs RuggaBugga Entertainment that produces Springbok rugby DVD’s on behalf of the SA Rugby Union.


    Al Stratford
    WINTEC INNOVATION | 2015


    Al Stratford is best known in South Africa for his development of innovative building technology. In particular, the award wining WINBLOK ® Pre-cast Concrete Window System.
    Al is a unique multi-skilled individual who broadened his understanding through practical hands on experience in the construction and manufacturing sector. Through his passion for innovation and design, and through peer recognition, Al registered as an architect in 2001 and went on to become the President of the South African Institute of Architects in 2009 and 2010.

    In a career spanning forty years, Al has patented many products, won numerous awards in Industrial Design and Architecture and presided as a judge over design award programs.
    Al continues to serve on various institutions with his current focus on innovating new products for his company WINTEC INNOVATION including a new range of patented flat pack furniture products; which won the Design Indaba 2013 Innovation Award. He is married with three sons all participating in family business in East London.

    AWARDS
    1988 SABS Industrial Design Awards - Winblok
    1995 Institute of Marketing Management – Marketing Man of the Year StratFlexTM Skin 1
    1995 Border Kei Institute of Architects – Regional Award: Audio Video Gallery 
    1996 SAIA – Award of Merritt: Audio Video Gallery
    1996 Cape Town Design for Living Exhibition – Most innovative new Product. 
    1996 SABS Industrial Design Awards – Winstep
    1996 SABS Industrial Design Awards – Windeck
    1996 Concrete Manufacturers Award – National Trophy – Winkit House
    2001 Border Kei Institute of Architects – Regional Award: Stratfords Guesthouse
    2001 South African Institute of Architects – National Award of Merit: Stratfords Guesthouse. 
    2013 Design Indaba 2013 Innovation Award – StratFlex furniture

    AL STRATFORD Pr. Arch. SACAP. SAIA

    Callie Merwe
    Design Partnership




    Callie studied architecture at the University of Port Elizabeth qualifying with a distinction and winning the South African National Corobrik Student of the Year Award in 1990.
    Following this Callie was employed as a 3rd year Studio Master at the University of Port Elizabeth, while at the same time establishing an architectural practice with Francois van der Merwe. In 1991 and 1992 they won 3rd place in the Everite Facades Architecture Award and 1st place in the Laminate Industries Retail Award for Interiors, respectively.
    The latter award brought them to Gauteng where they established the Design Partnership in Pretoria in 1994 and eventually branched out into three independent, but complimentary business units: Branding, Retail & Hospitality, and Architecture, each headed by a different partner.
    The work of the Design Partnership has been covered extensively in the media both locally and abroad and the partners are interviewed and quoted regularly as authorities in the field of interior design.
    Currently, Design Partnership specializes in retail design with the current shareholders, Adrian Morris, Yatish Narsi and Callie van der Merwe sitting acros the various disciplines of the brand. On the Retail front they have been responsible for the development of iconic brands such as the new look Standard Bank, Mugg & Bean, new look Wimpy, new look Ocean Basket, new look Fishaways, Hungry Lion, new look Incredible Connection, Reggies, Toys R Us, Doppio Zero and Juicy Luicy. They also consult to the Edcon group extensively.

    Position CEO and partner, the Design Partnership.
    Qualifications 1991. B.Arch.

    • Judge. Pg Bison Student award. Develop 2011 brief 2011
    • Judge Pg Bison Student award 2012
    • Judge RDDA 2012
    • Judge PG Bison Student award 2013
    • Judge RDDA 2013

    Dave Nemeth
    Trend Forward





    A leading Blue Chip international company recently identified Dave as one of the top creative influencers in the country.

    
Dave Nemeth is a qualified designer who has held a variety of senior as well as executive positions with some of the countries leading retail groups, spanning a career of twenty years. He is the owner of Trend-Forward a trend consulting business and is often referred to as on of the countries leading trend Gurus by a host of publications and online media. He produces an annual trend forecast focusing on design within business which has become a sought after report over the past four years with a host of different industries attending these presentations around the country, normally to a sell-out crowd.

    He also owns a company called Urban Originals, which specializes in high-end interior and architectural design as well as bespoke furniture. Urban Originals design philosophy is one of creating unique urban looking interiors with a certain truth to materials.

    Nemeth consults to a host of businesses from SME’s to some very prominent blue chip companies on how to do things differently in order to leapfrog the competition in these tough times. He is often called upon for his views on innovation and forward thinking and is no stranger to both TV and Radio, he also writes for a host of publications including some leading business publications as well as some to design journals

    He is often a keynote speaker at a variety of conferences and debates and his energetic approach has ensured a continual growth on these platforms. He is currently consulting to a host of businesses both locally and internationally; these are as diverse as blue chip retailers to trade expos and even restaurants.

    “It is no longer good enough to simply ‘think out of the box’, the box has been destroyed and we need to be thinking in hexagons and polygons”. – Dave Nemeth.

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