John Girard
Minot State University, USA

Topic
Guiding Organisation into the future with KM

John Girard is a tenured full professor at Minot State University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate business classes. John’s current research interests include knowledge management, social media, virtual business, online education, and globalization. John is founder and Chief Knowledge Strategist of Sagology (www.sagology.com), a firm dedicated to connecting people with people to facilitate collaboration, learning, and knowledge sharing through keynotes, workshops, and consulting. The Council of College Faculties elected John the 2010 - 11 faculty advisor to the State Board of Higher Education. He will serve a one-year term ending June 30, 2011. John’s CV is available here.

After 24 years as an officer in the Canadian Forces John, his wife JoAnn, and their two dogs moved to Minot, ND. Throughout his military career, John had the pleasure to serve in a variety of command and staff positions in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, gaining experience as a leader, trainer, policy officer, human resource manager, and project manager in the Public sector environment. In 2004, whilst acting as Director of Knowledge Management at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, he joined the faculty at Minot State University, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

John is a graduate of TUI University, where he completed a PhD in Business Administration and an MBA, and of the University of Manitoba where he achieved a BSc with a Computer Science major.  In addition, John is a graduate of Canadian Forces College, Toronto and the Royal Military College of Science in the United Kingdom.  

John speaks regularly on subjects such as knowledge management, social media, transformation, and innovation.  He has spoken at events in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America at such events as KM World, APQC’s Knowledge Management Conference, the World Congress on Intellectual Capital, KM Australia, InfoVision India, KM Asia, and many other events. John has undertaken training and consulting assignments for clients such as the Department of National Defence, Canadian Forces College, Canadian International Development Agency, US Department of Labor, Job Corps, Ark Group Australia, Success Steps Saudi Arabia, Saline Water Conversion Corporation, High Commission for the Development of ArRiyadh and the Dubai Municipality.

John is actively engaged in research, having written more than 30 articles and chapters for peer-reviewed or trade journals and books. John’s first book, an edited volume titled Building Organizational Memories: Will you know what you knew?, was published by IGI Global in March 2009.  John is the lead author of A Leader’s Guide to Knowledge Management: Drawing on the Past to Enhance Future Performance, published by Business Expert Press in  2009.  John is the lead editor for Social Knowledge: Using Social Media to Know What You Know, which will be published by IGI Global in early 2011. At present, John is working on a new book Virtual Business: Social Media Strategies for Building Real Competitive Advantage, scheduled for publication by Business Expert Press in 2011. 

Prior to returning to his passion of teaching, John gained experience as a university administrator and demonstrated his ability in a variety of senior positions including: Dean of Enrollment Management, Director of Enrollment Services, Chair of the Business Information Technology department, and Director of an Executive Management Program. 

The City and Guilds of London Institute awarded John their Insignia Award for his research into the application of robotic technology and subsequently appointed him a member of the City and Guilds Institute (MCGI).  In 2003 John received the Chartered Manager (F. CIM) designation from the Canadian Institute of Management.  In 2004 John earned the Best Academic Paper award at 7th Annual World Congress on Intellectual Capital and Innovation. For more information, please see www.johngirard.net 

Lynn Ilon
Seoul National University, South Korea

Topic
The Economics of Knowledge applied to African Community Learning

Lynn Ilon is Associate Professor in the College of Education, Seoul National University in South Korea.  She teaches Economic and Global dimensions in the Lifelong Learning program.  She is an educational economist who studies the intersection of global economics, learning and culture. Dr. Ilon has lectured and consulted for the World Bank, Harvard University, the United Nations, Educational Testing Service, the U.S. Agency for International Development, Department for International Development (UK), the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, UNESCO, several national governments and their agencies and several local and global NGOs. Dr. Ilon has lived and worked in numerous countries including Jamaica, the former Soviet Union, Egypt, United States (lived and worked), Kuwait, South Korea (lived and worked), Nepal, Canada, France, Jordan (lived and worked), Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malawi, Zambia (lived and worked), Eritrea, Tunisia, Zimbabwe (lived and worked) Uganda, Micronesia (lived and worked) and South Africa. Her reports, scholarly work and invited lectures have dealt with several other countries.

Dr. Ilon previous taught at Florida International University's International/Intercultural Studies in Education program and founded Florida International University's Intercultural Institute for Educational Initiatives. She also taught at State University of New York at Buffalo's program in International Education. She holds degrees in International Development Education (Ph.D), Economics (M.S.), Educational Psychology (Research and Statistics) (M.S.) and Anthropology (B.A.).

Patrick Lambe
Straits Knowledge, Singapore

Topic
Why are knowledge organisation systems important?

Patrick Lambe is two term past-President of the Information and Knowledge Management Society (www.ikms.org) and founder and Principal Consultant of Straits Knowledge (www.straitsknowledge.com), a KM consulting and research firm based in Singapore. He is also an Adjunct Professor in Knowledge Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Secretary of the iKMS KM Excellence Awards and  Editorial Advisory Board Member of the top-ranked Journal of Knowledge Management.

Patrick was educated at the University of Oxford and holds Master’s degrees from both Oxford and London. He gained his Master’s in Library and Information Studies from the University of London in 1985 and worked as a professional librarian in special and academic libraries in the UK until 1991.

He moved to a second career in training and development when he moved to Singapore in 1991, and has worked as a Director of Studies, trainer, as general manager of a training company, and as an e-learning entrepreneur. He began to be active in knowledge management in 1998 while working with the British Council in their own internal KM initiatives, and also working with the Singapore government on a new knowledge-worker skills training course for the Singapore workforce. He founded Straits Knowledge in 2002 with his business partner Edgar Tan.

Patrick is a prolific writer, international keynote speaker and teacher in knowledge management, and an active member of several professional communities, including iKMS, actKM Forum and the Taxonomy Community of Practice.He has published four books: The Blind Tour Guide: Surviving and Prospering in the New Economy (Singapore: Times, 2002) and Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness (Oxford: Chandos, 2007). In 2008 he co-authored with Edgar Tan KM Approaches Methods and Tools – A Guidebook (Straits Knowledge 2008). With Awie Foong he co-authored Knowledge Management Competencies: A Framework for Knowledge Managers (iKMS 2008). He has also produced a number of KM performance support tools: KM Method Cards (2008), Organisation Culture Cards (2009), KM Diagnostic Cards (2010) and KM Planning Canvas (2010). His weblog is at www.greenchameleon.com.

Ron Young
Young International Ltd, UK

Topic
Translating Knowledge into Knowledge Economy Development

Ron Young is the Chief Executive Officer of Young International Ltd, based in Cambridge and London U.K. He is acknowledged as a leading international expert and thought leader in Knowledge Management (KM) and Innovation.

He advised and assisted the UK DTI Innovation Unit in 1999 in the production of the UK Government White Paper ‘UK Competitiveness in the Knowledge Driven Economy’. He is a member of the New Club of Paris, a think tank for helping nations and organisations transform into the global knowledge economy.

Recent consulting engagements include developing KM strategies and advising and assisting major Multi-National Corporations, International UN Agencies, National Governments, and Professional Institutions around the world. He was a lead consultant for the European Commission 2 Million euro ‘Know-Net’ project.

He is joint author of ‘Knowledge Asset Management’ (Springer 2003) and ‘Upside Down Management’ (McGraw Hill Europe 1996), Knowledge Management: Facilitators Guide (Asian Productivity Organization, Tokyo, 2009), Knowledge Management: Case Studies for Small and Medium Enterprises (APO, Tokyo, 2009), Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques (APO, Tokyo, 2010). Knowledge Management: Practical Guidelines for SME’s (APO, Tokyo, 2010)

He is the founder of the leading global website www.knowledge-management-online.com.

He lives with his wife between Alaigne, SW France and Cambridge UK.

Anton Roodt
Visiting Professor, Wits Business School, South Africa

Topic
Creating social value – a developmental perspective for South Africa

Lecturer, author and coach in leadership, strategy, governance, and social entrepreneurship. Visiting professor, Wits Business School (WBS), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Lecturing includes Cambridge University UK; Rotterdam School of Management (RSM – Netherlands); Graduate Institute of Business Science (GIBS) University of Pretoria; Pakistan Institute of Management (PIM), Karachi. DCDM Business School, Mauritius.  

Initial academic studies in Linguistics and Philosophy at Potchefstroom (North-West) University.  Post-graduate studies at the University of Texas, Austin  USA as recipient of Rotary Foundation International Fellowship. Subsequently appointed tenured professor at Potchefstroom University South Africa.

Left the academic world for the corporate business sector, holding executive positions at South African companies Sasol and Gencor and attended international business schools IMD (Switzerland), London Business School (UK) and Wharton, Pennsylvania (USA). Established  business consultancy in Johannesburg, presenting executive programmes in Southern Africa, the UK, The Netherlands, Pakistan and Mauritius. During 2003 he was the Director of DCDM Business School in Mauritius and was editor of the Mauritius 2003 Report on Corporate Governance.  

During the political transition in South Africa, chairman of SACCOLA (South African Consultative Committee on Labour Affairs), participating in brokering  ground breaking tripartite agreements on labour legislation by business, labour and government.

Serves on the Advisory Board of The Jesuit Institute of South Africa in accordance with interest in spiritual leadership.

Passionate about leadership in a living systems context and a wilderness enthusiast.

Zak Van Straaten
South Africa

Topic
How to Leverage innovation best practices and knowledge management best practices on a small budget to get big returns

Larry Tod Wilson
USA

Topic
This session will be a virtual presentation - Local Knowledge Harvesting: A Method for Leveraging Knowledge and Growing Economies in Poorly-Resourced Areas 

Hundreds of the world's top performers and subject matter experts (SMEs) have entrusted Larry to help them articulate, systematize, and create extraordinary value for their hard-earned insights. In collaboration with the SMEs, Larry has produced award-winning, commercial learning systems, patentable subject matter, trade secrets, and management systems for departments and enterprises. He has authored dozens of articles, book chapters, conference presentations, and workshops; and has served as a knowledge management thought leader for several organizations. Larry’s capability comes from a unique confluence of learning theory, problem-solving methodology, visual-arts communications, systems thinking, and software engineering. He delivers a rare, valuable result - tangible knowledge assets.

Motlalepula Gilbert Matsabisa
Medical Research Council, South Africa

Topic
A competitive advantage for Community Business Enterprise Development for Skills Development, Wealth Creation and Job Creation. The use of Medicinal Plants for Community Business Development

Dr Matsabisa has a PhD in Pharmacology. He is the member of the African Pharmacology Society and a Vice-chairperson of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Society. He is currently the Director of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems (Health) Lead Programme (IKS) at Medical Research Council. He serves on Medicines Control Council and he is a member of the Complementary Medicines Committee and a chairperson of the African Traditional Medicines Committees of Medicines Control Council (MCC) and a member of the MCC’s Plant based and Traditional Medicines Clinical Trials Task Team. Dr Matsabisa is also a member of the WHO Afro Regional Expert Committee on Traditional Medicines and a Technical advisor to the SADC Health Desk on Traditional Medicines. He serves in the Steering Committee on Regional Initiative on Traditional Medicines and HIV and AIDS in Eastern & Southern Africa (RITMA). He is also a member of the steering committee on access and benefit-sharing review of the Biodiversity Management Act. Dr Matsabisa is also a member of the SADC committee on access and benefit–sharing and has served as a technical advisor to SADC secretariat and WHO on traditional medicines. He serves on the MRC Scientific Peer review Committee. Dr Matsabisa is a member of the Ministerial task team on Medicinal Products Technical Team for access to essential medicines. He is currently a member of DST African Traditional Medicines Bioprospecting Platform. Dr Matsabisa is a resource person for WIPO on traditional medicines and IP utilization for community wealth generation

Dr Matsabisa has liaised and has developed good relations with traditional communities and healers. He has developed a model for fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of natural resources and information with traditional communities and healers. He is currently developing platforms for front-end research and development of traditional medicines. Dr Matsabisa is currently setting up clinical trial and systems biology platforms for assessing, evaluating claims for cures based on the use of traditional medicines and possible mechanisms of action/s of these products. He is now involved in entrepreneurship training of indigenous communities and running poverty alleviation projects based on the promotion of the application of scientific research into practical implementation of projects oriented to creating permanent sources of income, promoting the development of sustainable enterprises and their integration into the value adding processes of industrial development and commercialization of products derived from medicinal plants.

Dr Matsabisa has supervised honours, MSc, PhD and internship programme for students in traditional medicines research projects. He has 6 publications in natural products, made numerous presentations both nationally and internationally on issues of traditional medicines, traditional knowledge, and benefit-sharing and intellectual property rights. He co-authored the Traditional Healer’s Primary Healthcare handbook and Guidelines for the pre-clinical evaluation of the safety of traditional herbal antimalarials. Currently he holds a PCT patent and patents on novel compounds with antimalarial activity and these compounds are isolated from a medicinal plant.

Dr Matsabisa has won prestigious fellowships; Roche Foundation and SA/British Council Fellowships to pursue his MSc and PhD project in drug development for malaria from traditional medicines respectively. He has contributed both nationally and internationally in policy-making bodies in traditional medicines. Currently he is involved with outreach programs for the IKS Lead programme with traditional healers and schools for the Medical Research Council.

Dr Matsabisa has managed huge projects for DOH (R6.7 million), DST (R12.9 million), NRF (R5.0million), NRF international funding (R4.2 million) DSD (R4,5 million) others including contract research (3.387 million) [approximately Total R41.9 million] and is currently working on research consortium with numerous African countries as the project leader (Botswana, DRC, Kigali, Uganda and Nigeria). Dr Matsabisa has completed many projects nationally and is experience in developing databases including the GPS (GIS) database of South African traditional healers. He is the project leader in a number of inter country projects and he is the project leader for IKS medicinal plants projects for social and poverty elimination projects funded by DST. Dr Matsabisa has been a project leader on a number of controlled clinical trials on traditional medicines both at observational studies, Phase I clinical trials and Phase II studies.

Dr Matsabisa has been part of ministerial trips, made numerous presentations to government parliamentary portfolio committees (Health, Science and technology and Arts and Culture). Dr Matsabisa has contributed in three consecutive terms on the AU ordinary sessions of Ministers of Health.