Dan Mashitisho is currently the Director-General of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.  He was the Director-General of the Department of Water and Sanitation where he was ex officio, Sherpa to the State President on matters relating to the United Nation’s High Level Panel on Water (HLPW). He has extensive experience spanning over 22 years, particularly in the field of Local Government and Public Service in general.  He served the Gauteng Government for a period of ten years in various capacities. He served as a Municipal Manager for a period of 12 years. It was during his tenure as the Municipal Manager that he founded and was elected Chairperson of the Institute of South African Municipal Accounting Officers (ISAMAO). He holds a Bachelor’s degree and Post graduate qualifications in various academic fields including Law, Management, Politics, Business Administration and Industrial Psychology from the Universities of Witwatersrand( Wits), Johannesburg (UJ) and Management College of Southern Africa (MANCOSA ).

Makhosi Khoza is a Civil Activist and former Member of Parliament who served as chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration. She holds a PhD in Public Administration and a Master’s Degree in Social Science. The corruption and maladministration in the local sphere of government led her to join OUTA as an Executive Director and Head of their Local Division.

Dawie Roodt is a founder, Director and Chief Economist of the Efficient Group. He serves on a variety of investment committees within the Efficient Group. Dawie’s latest role is that of Chairmen of Efficient Private Clients, of which Efficient Group is the majority shareholder.  Dawie is a nationally renowned economist, with over 30 years’ experience. He specialises in monetary and fiscal policy and is involved with the management of client asset portfolios. His interest in international and local politics has grown and he has become knowledgeable in the field of politics as well. Dawie is ranked the most referenced economists in the country and received the prestigious Economist of the year award by Sake 24, a media house. He has been the anchor presenter of the television program Ontbytsake for the past 15 years.

Sithole Mbanga has been with the South African Cities Network (SACN) since 2002. He is arguably one of the most knowledgeable people in the country about the journey that our current system of local government has travelled, and particularly the evolution of our municipalities. He has been a consistent advocate and informant of the urban development agenda for over a decade and has helped steadily grow the influence and contributions of the SACN to improving urban governance practice and analysis. Sithole was previously the Local Government Coordinator at the National Business Initiative (NBI), was involved with conducting capacity building training in Municipal Service Partnership (MSP), and participated in the development of the then National Department of Local Government’s (DPLG) national policy on Integrated Development Planning (IDP). Sithole’s contributions are well recognized in political and technical circles in South Africa. Reputed for a “no holds barred”, creative and dynamic approach to tackling issues, he has been continually sought after to advise municipal and party leadership, contribute to various Boards (e.g. SANPARKS), and speak at various engagements.

Toby Shapshak is editor-in-chief and publisher of Stuff, a Forbes contributor and a Financial Mail columnist. He has been writing about technology and the internet for 20 years and his TED Global talk on innovation in Africa has nearly 1,5-million views (and has nearly as many views as Richard Branson). He has written about Africa’s tech and start-up ecosystem for Forbes, CNN and The Guardian in London. He was named in GQ’s top 30 men in media and the Mail & Guardian newspaper’s influential young South Africans. He has been featured in the New York Times. GQ said he “has become the most high-profile technology journalist in the country”.  He’s been running his own small business for 18 years.

Justine Limpitlaw – BA LLB (Wits) LLM (Yale) – is an independent communications law consultant a Visiting Adjunct Professor with the LINK Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand. She specializes in broadcasting, media, telecommunications, Internet and space and satellite law. She is an expert in drafting legislation, regulations and policies for electronic communications regulation. She is the author of two two-volume books, the Media Law Handbook for Southern Africa and the Media Law Handbook for Eastern Africa, all of which include extensive analysis of broadcasting and online regulatory environments. She has given lectures on various communications-law issues at a number of universities including: the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Pretoria, Rhodes University as well as Columbia and Oxford Universities.

Ian Bessarabia heads up South African operations for ConsenSys, a leading global Blockchain fueled organism, that develops the infrastructure, applications, and practices to enable a decentralised world. Working collaboratively with financial market players, central banks and regional bodies across Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on improving business processes, and his passion for community upliftment through technology is what drives him to educate the broader market of the benefits that Blockchain wil bring. He thrives on mentoring start-ups and early-stage initiatives looking at deploying technology for social good. As an ethical protagonist, he is also a participant of the Ethics and Governance Think Tank, run by The University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIB’s), under the stewardship of Rabbi Gideon Pogrund. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Business Management and Economics from the University of South Africa and a Diploma in Strategic Business Management from the University of Cape Town. Having held senior positions in various industry technology driven initiatives throughout his career, he is now tasked to spearhead the implementation of local Blockchain solutions, which will address many of the challenges small and medium sized businesses are currently facing in the country.