Mr Yan-Erik Decorde

Entrepreneur, Speaker & ExO Coach

Mr Yan-Erik Decorde is an entrepreneur, speaker and coach, his goal is to adapt organisations to the future, to generate an abundance of life and joy.

He does this through inspiring talks and conferences, through workshops revealing innovation potential, and by coaching teams and leaders with innovation and digital transformation methodologies.

His learning journey explores mathematics, business, mental preparation techniques, hypnosis and meditation, methods of social innovation and emergence such as Theory U, radical innovation, exponential thinking, and organizational transformation.

He has been working internationally for 20 years and has dedicated the last 10 years to support teams in exponential innovation for financial, industrial, corporate and start-up groups. Its mission is to acculturate the leaders and their teams to the exponential model then to accompany them towards the change, the adaptation to their future.

"My favourite moment is when the system reveals its true complexity and the teams become aware of the future that emerges from it."

Today, as ambassador and coach of the OpenExO international community, he works within an ecosystem of 3000 coaches and experts to facilitate innovation and transformation for a better future.

Yan-Erik Decorde
Adapter au Futur | Transformation Exponentielle des Organisations
ExO Coach & Ambassador @ openexo.com
yanerikdecorde.com

Mr. Ajibad Yusuf

MD, Gradient Consulting Africa

Mr Ajibade has a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting & Finance from Kingston University, Executive MBA from Manchester Business School and a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant with over 19years of financial and management experience.   Mr Ajibade was Head of Financial Reporting at HSBC Securities Services Guernsey, where he served as a member of the audit & risk committee for various offshore Investment funds. He also provides advice to the Board of Directors on technical accounting and regulatory matters. Mr Ajibade has extensive offshore fund industry experience holding a number of positions working for BlackRock Asset Management, State Street Bank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and Investec Asset Management.

Mr Ajibade specialization and focus includes Fund Administration, Depositary Bank, Asset Management, Risk & Governance, Regulatory & Financial Reporting, and Fund consulting.

Mr. Sand Mba Kalu

MD, Africa International Trade & Commerce Research

Mr Sand Mba is an International Trade Expert with over 13 years of professional experience, working in a complex multicultural environment in International Trade and Investment. He is the Executive Director of Africa International Trade and Commerce Research, Board member International Trade and Research Centre (An Independent Not-for-Profit Think-tank), Technical committee member, Trade Working Group for National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable (NASSBER), member, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, convener, Nigeria International Trade and Investment Conference and has played a lead role in Business Development, conference and keynote presentation, Consultancy and Research.

Sand experience cut across several sectors in Africa and comprise many engagements, which include assignments managed for European Union, World Bank, International Trade Centre, Geneva, German Embassy/ GIZ, Swedish Embassy, Naurex Nigeria, Nigerian Trade Experts Forum, Federal Ministry of Agriculture Rural-Urban Development, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations (NOTN), Expo-Link, Manufacturing Association of Egypt, Natax International, UK, Policy Development Facility 2 (PDF II),  MSCA Worldwide Projects, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Export Connections, UK, Nigerian Private Sector Alliance (NiPSA), and multinationals. He was one of the lead technical consultant that conducted the independent study on the potential benefit of African Continental Free Trade Area on Nigeria, with the following objectives; Assess harmony between AfCFTA and ERGP 2017-2021; Harness the perspectives of the private sector on benefits and costs of AfCFTA to businesses and the economy; Evaluate potential output, trade, welfare and labour market effects; Examine the potential effects on frontline sectors.

Mr Sand holds a certificate in Trade Negotiations in an Era of Uncertainty, from European University Institute, Italy and a Bachelor’s degree in International Trade, from the University of Portsmouth, UK and Masters in International Business Management from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom. He also holds Certificate in Professional Consultancy, Value Management, and Certificate in Management Consulting Essential (CMCE), and has attended several professional development courses with International Trade Centre (ITC), World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank, and Future Learning, UK. He is a member of many noble professional bodies and an enthusiast of the Formula 1 Motor Sport.

Mr. Mondher Khanfir

VP, Tunisia Africa Business Council

Mr Mondher Khanfir is an impact entrepreneur and investment advisor with a special dedication for PPP. He’s a seasoned professional with a strong background in business consulting, governance and strategic planning for both private and public sectors. His passion for public policy as an enabler for social and economic development had driven him to policy analysis and advocacy, mainly in Africa and MENA region, where he is regularly appointed as expert by different International institutions such as the World Bank, OECD, UN-ESCWA, AFD and EBRD. He is assisting Governments to manage infrastructure investment plans in order to better integrate international value chains. He authored several reports and led many missions to implement framework programs, also delivered studies on private sector competitiveness and analysis on the capital market development in emerging economies. During the decisive period of transition to democracy in Tunisia, he acted as Head of the Cabinet of the Minister of Transportation. He was behind the Road Map 2014, which included a very ambitious program of Digitization labelled MoVility. Mondher is also a visiting lecturer in many business incubators and accelerators. His publications are searchable on https://www.slideshare.net/MondherKhanfir

Dr Valérie Lehmann

Change Management Expert

Valérie Lehmann, MBA & PhD in Administration HEC Montréal, International Association for Public Participation Certified, Lego Serious Game Certified, Living Lab coach, full professor and researcher, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada

 Valérie Lehmann is a professor and an action-researcher at UQAM since 2006. She also is a speaker at Essec Paris since 2005 and an associate professor at Sciences Po Lyon since 2017.

Her work in companies, training activities, research projects and publications focus on project management, change management, participatory approaches and open innovation processes. Valérie Lehmann coaches several Living Labs since 2018.

She is the author of some dozen scientific articles and book chapters since 2010. She has co-edited several books, as L'innovation collective, quand créer avec devient essentiel (2020) and Pour des parties prenantes engagées dans les projets (2022). She is also co-author of Le changement de crise et la Covid (2020) and Les organisations hybrides (2022).

Her latest work concern Open innovation and Living Labs for climate transition and urban projects. She is involved in the Think Tank La Fabrique du Futur, in the Chair for Change at Essec, in the ClimaReso of Central America, and in the research group Réseau Intersectoriel Inondations Québec (RIISQ). She is also an active member of IAP2 Research Committee and the Scientific President of ACCS.

Mail : valerie.lehmann@hec.ca and lehmann.valerie@uqam.ca

URL : https://www.linkedin.com/in/valérie-lehmann-73a967/

Dr. Guy TANONKOU

General Manager at ACSAL a.s.b.l Luxembourg

Dr. Guy TANONKOU is a researcher in network optimisation and simulation. He has a PhD degree in Industrial, Mathematical Engineering and Computer Science from INRIA (a French National Institute in Computer Science and Automation). He has worked on several European FP7 Project: (i) project u-2010 (Ubiquitous IP Centric Government & Enterprise Next Generation Networks – where the objective was to provide the most capable means of communication and the most effective access to information to everybody required to act in case of an accident, incident, catastrophe or crisis while using existing or future telecommunication infrastructures, (ii) FP6 Project I*PROMS (Network of Excellence for Innovative Production Machines and Systems) with the objective to develop models and decisions tools for supply chain network design problems, (iii) the project IRMA (Integrated Risk Management for Africa) where the objectives were to build a reference infrastructure and access‐platform suitable for the management of natural and environmental risks in Africa.
Dr. Tanonkou is the Project Coordinator of AiA (Awareness in Africa: Disseminating Knowledge on EGNOS and Galileo in Africa to Foster Local Development – www.gnss4africa.lu). A European FP7 project where the purpose is to create a practical link between Europe and Africa in the domain of satellite-based navigation and positioning and related applications, particularly focusing on awareness dissemination, transfer of basic knowledge and education activities.
He has published several papers in international conferences with scientific program committees (IEEE, IFAC), has two journal papers (IEEE & IJCAT), four research reports from the Luxembourg Ministry of high education and research. He has received the best paper award at IEEE conference on “Automation Science and Engineering”, Shanghai, Oct 2006. His research interest included Wireless Mesh Networks, Stochastic and Combinatorial Optimization, Network Optimisation in Communication System and Telecommunication Network Design and Engineering. Dr. Guy TANONKOU is currently a research coordinator in ACSAL (A Luxembourg research Agency for Scientific Cooperation between Luxembourg and Africa www.acsal-science.org). This is an agency promoting the development of Africa countries through technology transfer and scientific research. The main objective of this institution is to build scientific cooperation between Europe and Africa (especially in the field of ICT), to encourage and support the African researcher in order to enable them to use their own competences as regards research and development for fighting against the underdevelopment of the continent. Dr. Guy Tanonkou has worked at the Faculty of Sciences, Technology and Communication of the University of Luxembourg as a researcher.
Contact
Dr. Guy TANONKOU
S/C ACSAL
13, Avenue Gaston Diderich
L-1420 Luxembourg
Tél. 621 392 226
Email : tanonkou@acsal-science.org

Mervyn George

SAP Innovation Director, South Africa

Mrs Tunde Kallai

Circular Economy and Living lab EU expert

Mrs. Tunde Kallai is a senior research expert on Circular Economy, Living Labs and Open innovation with 18 years of experience in EU RTD and Innovation programs/tenders and technical assistance in Europe and MENA countries mainly. Mrs Kallai is a Project evaluator since 2002 in FP6/FP7, H2020, Interreg Central Europe, ENI CBC MED, PRIMA programs etc.  She was one of the founding members of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) in 2005. She gave her assistance and concept development for the set-up of 17 Living Labs (urban/rural) in 7 countries (HU, CH, MT, SN, TN, KSA, TR) and 3 continents (Europe, Africa and the Middle East) in the last 14 years. Her main interest is the circular transition from a linear economy to circular economies in urban and rural contexts, the new business models, and capitalisation strategies in the framework of user-driven open innovation. Tunde is a member of the ADL-INNET advisory board and will be actively representing ADL-INNET  in several African projects.

Tunde is a winner of the feasibility study on “LIVING LAB ON DEMAND” under the Open Call for Pilot Projects – Stage 1 (Feasibility Studies) of Design scapes for H2020 project in 2019. (www.designscapes.eu). The Living Lab On Demand is based on the prototype development of a self-driving/car installed by Sig-Fox in Malta, an open innovation platform for real-time collaboration, blockchain technology (for pre-payed/pre-ordered service) , prototyping with Rolling Geeks possibly using the e-Palette concept car of TOYOTA Motor Japan, in collaboration with the Church in Malta, religious NGO for Elderly Homes.

Tunde is a Non-Panel Member of UNSG's High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation community (since 14th of July 2018) @UNSGdigicoop and #DigitalCooperation on Twitter and subscription on https://digitalcooperation.org/events and Newsletter since November 2018.

Mr. Hubert K. Foy

Executive Director - AFRICSIS GHANA

Mr. Hubert K. Foy is founding director and senior research scientist of the African Centre for Science and International Security, headquartered in Accra, Ghana. Also, Mr Foy is a consultant on issues of nuclear and radiological security in Africa to the IAEA and US Department of Energy. Additionally, Mr. Foy is an Editorial Board Member and Professional Review Liaison for the International Journal for Nuclear Security. For a decade, Mr. Foy has published and spoken widely on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, nuclear and radiological security, space safety and security, and dual-use science and technology. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published some of his analysis like Nuclear security: From summits to mechanisms and Sustaining progress in nuclear security without the summits—an African view. The Space Safety Magazine has published some of his pieces like Building the World’s First Automated Space Debris Tracker. In 2012 he was a nuclear security fellow at the International School on Nuclear Security in Trieste. In 2011, at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, he was a technical nonproliferation and disarmament fellow for the UK-Norway Initiative. He is a member of the Fissile Material Working Group and IAEA International Nuclear Security Education Network. He is a member of the NTI Nuclear Security Index’ International Panel of Experts. He holds a master's degree in space studies from the International Space University in France, a master's in international policy studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Computer Science from the University of Buea in Cameroon.