There’s such a thing as “too much information”, especially for
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamic
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamic
How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamic
Storyteller, Designer, and Educator | Red & Yellow Creative School of Business
Analogue Gal in a Digital World. I am a storyteller at heart. For centuries, stories are how humans connect, share knowledge, and inspire change, and that is the thread that runs through everything I do. I am a passionate educator and facilitator, with a knack for creating spaces where people feel empowered to learn, imagine, and grow. Currently, I lecture Digital Design at a tertiary level at Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, weaving motion design, interaction design, and narrative thinking into my teaching. Before stepping into academia, I ran my own entrepreneurial design business, helping small businesses, often those with a passion for change, find their brand voices in saturated markets. Alongside this, I facilitated workshops and spoke at events such as Lionesses of Africa, Future Females, and The Business Women Success Club, always driven by the same goal: to connect people through creativity. Whether I’m in a lecture hall, a boardroom, or a community space, creativity and design are my chosen rabbit hole, rooted in storytelling; much like Alice, I dive in willingly, exploring ideas, meaning, and possibility in a world that can often feel absurd. Design is how I navigate that wonderland: a place where curiosity fuels problem-solving, and where storytelling becomes a compass for making meaning. I believe in design for good: using creativity to make meaningful, positive changes in the environments we inhabit and the communities we are part of. This philosophy drives my work, whether I’m mentoring young designers, exploring new ways to integrate storytelling with technology, or creating workshops that inspire fresh perspectives. In an age dominated by algorithms and automation, I aim to bring the human touch: the analogue heartbeat in a digital ecosystem. My mission is simple: to empower, to connect, and to inspire through the transformative power of design and story. https://www.behance.net/lizpienaar
Chapter Head: Design Enablement - ABSA
Lizette Coetzee-Strydom is a dynamic leader with a rich and varied skill set, currently serving as Chapter Head: Design Enablement at Absa Personal and Private Bank. With a foundation in Law and currently pursuing her Master’s in Business Leadership, Lizette brings both strategic insight and academic rigor to her work.
Her career spans multiple disciplines, equipping her with deep expertise in communication, organisational management, performance optimisation, and sales. Known for her ability to build strong relationships and navigate complexity with clarity, Lizette excels at identifying risks, driving operational excellence, and fostering progress in challenging environments.
Her courageous, structure-driven approach is balanced by a compassionate leadership style that enables her to connect meaningfully with others. Whether she's streamlining systems or mentoring teams, Lizette is a force for positive change, blending empathy with impact.
Co-Founder | Human-Centred Researcher | Designer
Nicola is a seasoned digital product designer and researcher with over a decade of experience in human-centred design, educational development and knowledge transmission. Her career has included design and management roles in e-commerce, finance, education and the social impact sector, driven by advocacy for accessibility and inclusivity. She is co-founder and experience lead at The Empathy Lab
UX/UI Designer | Training Program Manager at SheCanDo
Salama Said is a UX/UI Designer and a SheCanDo Training Program Manager with experience spanning major brands like BMW, Loop, and NetFlorist, as well as fast-paced startups. She believes the real magic of UX happens in the quiet details that soften the edges of digital experiences and transform technology into trust.
Founder of Mantaray Africa
Founder of Mantaray Africa, a UX research & strategy company that operates across the Global South. We help businesses gain cultural insights and local context to create more inclusive products and services that people love.
Senior UX Designer
I'm a User Experience Designer at Reach Digital Health, where my focus is on designing digital products that improve the health outcomes of our end-users by building their decision-making ability when it comes to healthier behaviours. Our team prioritises humanity, empathy and simplicity in our solutions. We rely on solid user research to create experiences that are valuable and serve the fundamental role players in public health: healthcare departments, administrators, health workers, and patients. In my previous position at Neurozone® I worked with a team of neuroscientists to build an application that assesses users' psychological resilience, calculates the most effective ways to build resilience on a personalised and individual level, and makes recommendations. We practiced data-driven design, shaping our solution by spending time with coaches and professionals - our target audience. I believe that understanding the context of users and their unique needs is paramount. We can only build a better world if we begin with compassion and empathy. And we can only have empathy with people if we spend time getting to know them, their stories, their challenges and their needs. We need to learn to listen and observe. We must base our design efforts on the insights we gain by spending time with people and observing them interacting with our products.
Head of Design & Analysis | Co-Founder
I am a Senior UX/UI and Product Designer, Head of Design at Monkey & River, and co-founder of Azi User Testing. I have experience spanning startups to enterprise. I am very passionate about human-centred design that bridges the gap between user needs, business goals, and the unique realities of the South African context. I have led design teams, worked on international products, mentored emerging talent, and spoken at multiple industry events, advocating for pragmatic, inclusive, and locally relevant UX practices.
Designer | Mentor | Speaker
Alfi is a founder and product designer specialising in mentorship, education and software. His expertise spans advertising, fintech, and smart technology, including IoT. In advertising, he honed his passion for communication and presentation. Fintech exposed him to managing large teams and the effectiveness of podcasting, while IoT ignited his interest in cutting-edge technologies and hardware solutions. His career trajectory showcases a blend of innovation, leadership, and a deep commitment to education and mentorship.
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How you transform your business as technology, consumer, habits industry dynamic s change? Find out from those leading the charge.
08:00 - 12:00 Workshop 1
In SA, UX is too often a checkbox. In this hands-on workshop, shift from best-practice rigidity to curiosity-led, context-aware design. Practise quick, affordable testing methods and apply a framework to create impactful, inclusive solutions.
08:00 - 12:00 Workshop 2
13:00 - 17:00 Workshop 3
In this workshop, participants will have a well-defined goal and raw user testing data and go through the process of synthesising the data, designing their own opportunity solution tree, and planning experiments that they might take into hypothetical product cycles or into real product cycles, learning the fundamentals of how to perform a continuous discovery.
Doors Open, Coffee & Networking
Welcome - Opening Remarks
09:10 - 10:00 - Keynote
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more integrated into daily life, African youth increasingly leverage AI tools to enhance their education, work, and personal development. This presentation explores how AI is shaping the lives of African youth, analysing both the benefits and risks associated with AI tools.
10:00 - 10:35
We designed 4 surveys typically sent to pregnant moms in MomConnect via WhatsApp and enhanced these with an LLM. In July of this year we did one-on-one in-person qualitative usability testing of these surveys as well as their statically designed counterparts with 17 pregnant moms in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Each mom sat with a single facilitator and was asked to complete a survey twice: first the static version, and then the LLM-enhanced version, while facilitators observed and made notes. Right after completion, the moms were asked which one they preferred and why they preferred that one. We accounted for ordering effects by asking half of our moms to begin with the static version, and the other half to begin with the LLM-enhanced version. The surveys we tested were: - a demographic information survey - a 5-question decision-making ability assessment - a knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour assessment regarding pregnancy - a short survey typically sent after an antenatal clinic appointment We also tested a feature where moms could ask any pregnancy health-related questions, as freeform text, and get an answer from the LLM, where the LLM was limited to approved healthcare information provided by our content team. Our findings were fascinating and point to: (1) the risks of using LLM-enhancement and how this might affect the credibility of data gathered (2) the need to keep humans in the loop on both the design side and the data moderation side of these kinds of studies (3) the immense potential of LLM-enhancement in the provision of digital healthcare information and services
09:05 - 09:50 Keynote
Speaker Loading
10:00 - 10:25
Let’s be honest - the world seems pretty awful right now. Design has been swallowed up by the corporate machine, we’re regurgitating patterns and libraries so everything looks the same, and AI has finally arrived (disguised as bunnies on a trampoline) to take our jobs. Meanwhile we're all burned out, questioning our impact, seriously considering homesteading, and wondering how the hell we ended up designing for profit instead of people. This talk is a reality check and a pep talk rolled into one. We'll dig into how design has lost its way, why it's not entirely our fault, and most importantly, what we can actually do about it in our day-to-day work, in order to stay sane. No LinkedIn memes, no corporate jargon - just an honest conversation about getting back to designing things that don't suck for the humans who have to use them.
10:35 - 11:00 Networking Break
Networking Break
11:00 - 11:25
In higher education, creativity is widely recognised as a powerful tool for regulating emotions and managing stress (Xu & Wang, 2022). But what happens when the very source of stress, emotional strain, and potential burnout is the creative programme itself? For students in design, illustration, and other creative disciplines, the pressure to constantly produce original work can erode the joy of creation and compromise emotional wellbeing. Academic burnout, a form of learning burnout common in higher education, is increasingly shaped by the culture of speed and productivity (Wang, Sun, & Wu, 2022). The growing integration of AI into student workflows can amplify this effect, leading to information overload, reduced independent problem-solving, diminished self-management, and a drop in creative exploration (Dong, Wang, & Han, 2025). While AI offers efficiency, it can unintentionally discourage the very innovation and curiosity that creative fields thrive on. In an environment that mirrors the relentless pace of the professional creative industry, students face mounting pressure to “perform” rather than to play. This research explores how cultivating spaces of play and softness, often overlooked in academic settings, can foster creative resilience. By prioritising mindset, experimentation, and joy in making, educators can better equip students to sustain their creativity in the face of stress. In this talk, I explore the lived student experiences of burnout and recovery within creative higher education. And provide insights that inform more human-centred teaching methods and support systems, ensuring students leave not only with technical skills but with the resilience to thrive in a demanding, fast-paced creative industry.
There’s such a thing as “too much information”, especially for
There’s such a thing as “too much information”, especially for
There’s such a thing as “too much information”, especially for
1Hd- 50, 010 Avenue, NY 90001
United States
Name: Ronaldo König
Phone: 009-215-5595
Email: info@example.com
Name: Ronaldo König
Phone: 009-215-5595
Email: info@example.com
1Hd- 50, 010 Avenue, NY 90001
Australia
Name: Ronaldo König
Phone: 009-215-5595
Email: info@example.com
Name: Ronaldo König
Phone: 009-215-5595
Email: info@example.com
1Hd- 50, 010 Avenue, NY 90001
United States
Name: Ronaldo König
Phone: 009-215-5595
Email: info@example.com
Name: Ronaldo König
Phone: 009-215-5595
Email: info@example.com
