Naledi Pandor has been the Minister for Science and Technology in the Republic of South Africa since 2009. Before then she was the Minister of Education (2004-2009). She first became a member of Parliament in 1994, serving on the portfolio committee on education, and as ANC deputy chief whip. She was the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces from 1999-2004. Before then she worked in the Academic Support Programme at the University of Cape Town and was a member of and chaired various education-related organizations. She was awarded a masters degree in education at the University of London in 1978 and a masters degree in general linguistics at Stellenbosch University in 1997. She was the last Chancellor of the Cape Technikon.

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Dr Steven D. Gray, Head and Vice President of Corporate Research with Huawei Technologies, he is responsible for driving the strategy and work programs for next generation wireless infrastructure. Prior to Huawei, Dr. Gray held executive level positions across R&D, product architecture, marketing, sales and product development in many wireless companies including Nokia, HYPRES, Intel's Cellular and Handheld Group, and Marvell. Dr. Gray is a Senior Member of the IEEE, and is a member of the honorary engineering societies Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. He has numerous journal papers, contributed to two books and given numerous invited presentations on wireless communications. He holds 10 US patents related to transceiver design and future wireless communication systems.

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Etisalat Nigeria, a recent mobile telecommunications entrant into the largest market in Africa announced the appointment of Steven E. Evans as its new Chief Executive Officer in November 2008.
Formerly CEO of BT Mobile and Director of Wireless Broadband at BT Mr Evans has a twenty year track record in the global mobile telecommunications industry.
Mr Evans spent 10 years with Cable&Wireless holding a number of senior positions in its mobile investments around the world. In 1991 he was appointed General Manager of Optus Mobile and spearheaded its entry into the Australian market. In 1994 he took the role of Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Telecom in France, a position he held for the following 4 years, and during which he held responsibility for the launch of the business and the development of its operational capabilities. In 1998 he returned to the UK as Deputy Managing Director of One2One, a position he held until the business was acquired by T Mobile late in 1999.
Following his period at Cable&Wireless Evans went on to take the position of CEO of Dolphin Telecommunications the pan European enterprise mobile operator. Later in 2004 Mr Evans took charge of BT Mobile securing the MVNO agreement with Vodafone and launching a succession of mobile and wireless broadband services into the enterprise and consumer markets.

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Andile Ngcaba is the Executive Chairman of Dimension Data Middle East & Africa, a specialist IT services and solution provider that helps clients plan, build and support their IT and Communications infrastructures. Andile holds a Master of Commerce, majoring in Information Systems, qualification from the University of Witwatersrand. The University of Fort Hare honoured him with an honorary Doctorate in Commerce. He has also obtained a diploma in Executive Management Programme jointly offered by Stanford and Singapore University. He served as Director-General of the Department of Communications in the South African Government for 8½ years until December 2003. Since his departure he has led the BEE consortia that acquired a 25,01% interest in Dimension Data and a 6,6% stake in Telkom. Andile also serves as chairman of Convergence Partners, an investment company focusing on the Telecommunications, Media and Technology sector. Andile was an advisor to the Digital Inclusion Programme at Harvard University Law School and served on the International Telecommunications Union and Digital Opportunity Task Force of the G8. He drove the process of drafting and writing the White and Green Papers, which culminated in the promulgation of the Telecommunication Act of 1996. He also championed the process of promulgation of the Sentech Act, and was actively involved in the privatisation and Initial Public Offering of Telkom, and initiated the process of the licensing of the Second National Operator.

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Reuben September was appointed to the Telkom Board on May 8, 2007 and as Chief Executive Officer of the Group on November 22, 2007. Previously, he served as acting Chief Executive Officer since April 5, 2007, as Chief Operating Officer since September 5, 2005, as Chief Technical Officer from May 2002 until August 2005 and as Managing Executive of Technology and Network Services from March 2000 to April 2002. He has worked in various engineering and commercial positions at Telkom since 1977. He is a member of the Professional Institute of Engineers of South Africa (ECSA) and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Cape Town. Mr. September was also a Director of Vodacom from September 2005 to May 2009.

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Reinaldo A. Valenzuela: Obtained his B.Sc. at the University of Chile, and his Ph.D. from Imperial College of Sc. and Tech., U. of London, England. At Bell Laboratories, he carried out indoor microwave propagation measurements and developed statistical models. He also worked on packet reservation multiple access for wireless systems and optical WDM networks. He became Manager, Voice Research Dept., at Motorola Codex, involved in the implementation integrated voice and data packet systems. On returning to Bell Laboratories he was involved in propagation measurements and ray tracing propagation prediction. He received the Distinguished Member of Technical Staff award and is Director of the Wireless Communications Research Department. He is currently engaged in MIMO / space time systems achieving high capacities using transmit and receive antenna arrays. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. He has been editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications and the IEEE Transactions on Wireless. He has published over 130 papers and has 12 patents. He has over 10 000 Google Scholar citations and he is a 'Highly Cited Author' In Thomson ISI and a Fulbright Senior Specialist. He is the 2010 recipient of the IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award

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Raymond W. Yeung received the BS, MEng, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Cornell University. He joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1988. Since 1991, he has been with Department of Information Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he is currently a chair professor. Since 2010, he has also been serving as Co-Director of the Institute of Network Coding at CUHK.
He is a co-founder of the field of Network Coding and received the 2005 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award for his work on linear network coding. He also received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2007 and was a recipient of the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship for 2000/01. He is the author of the books A First Course in Information Theory (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2002) and Information Theory and Network Coding (Springer 2008).
Professor Yeung was a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society from 1999 to 2001. He was the General Chair of the First Workshop on Network, Coding, and Applications (NetCod 2005). He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers.

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Gary Bridge is senior vice president of the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG). IBSG works with many of the world's leading companies and governments to help them become more effective through changed business processes and intelligent technology deployment. Bridge brings solid industry knowledge and broad experience to the organization.
Prior to joining Cisco, he was corporate vice president of IBM's Worldwide Marketing Management and Market Intelligence. He was instrumental in the development of IBM's e-business strategy and was responsible for marketing management, brand strategy, and worldwide customer information. Prior to IBM, he led his own strategy consulting firm for 10 years, serving multinational clients in the IT industry, finance, and publishing industries. A former professor at Columbia University, Bridge has been associated with a number of prestigious think tanks, including the RAND Corporation, Battelle Memorial Institute, and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Secretary of Defence).
Bridge graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree and doctorate in psychology.

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