IT Indaba: the biggest IT conference in Africa

During his presentation at the 2026 IT Indaba, Nkgethu Tebogo Mampana, head of data management at Absa, unpacked the processes around building a trusted enterprise AI in a privacy-first world.

With technology teams being asked to move faster, deliver more, and respond to an endless stream of competing demands, the risk of burnout is higher than ever. In a panel discussion at the 2026 IT Indaba, Josh Souchon, IT executive at Opp-Gen, Phila Ndarana, CTO at the Auditor General of South Africa, and Popi Kunene, operations director at Mgoza Group, tackled this dilemma.

As businesses become increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure, investing in new technologies is only part of the challenge. Without the right skills, partnerships and visibility across their systems, organisations risk spending heavily on tools that fail to deliver the intended results.

At the 2026 IT Indaba, Africa’s biggest IT conference and expo, technology leaders learnt how smarter cloud strategies can keep costs in check – while still unlocking AI value

AI agents promise to move enterprise technology beyond storing and processing information towards systems that can understand context, make decisions and take action. But what needs to be in place before organisations can put agents to work on scale?

At the recent 2026 IT Indaba, tech leaders and corporate executives gathered at the Sandton Convention Centre for an impactful panel session titled The human cost of automation: Are we overinvesting in AI?

At the 2026 IT Indaba, tech leaders were challenged to uncover AI’s untapped potential – by looking at their business’s unexplored ‘wild sides’.

Speaking at the 2026 IT Indaba, Lesedi Modibane, head: data, analytics and AI at MakwaIT discussed the implications of AI incorrectly flagging people when it comes fraud scoring, claims, credit and eligibility.

Businesses have spent decades investing in websites and mobile applications to improve customer experience, but the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) agents could fundamentally change how consumers interact with their products and services.

CIOs must define accountability and establish appropriate controls as organisations deploy AI agents that can make decisions and take action with less human intervention, delegates at the 2026 IT Indaba heard.

Storing data locally does not automatically guarantee data sovereignty. During a panel discussion titled: Borderless business, local data: Navigating data sovereignty in 2026, top IT leaders unpacked how to balance global cloud scale with strict local compliance under Popia and GDPR.

Artificial intelligence is moving at extraordinary speed, leaving technology leaders with a growing list of decisions about where to invest, what to build and how quickly to move on. Capitec Bank group CIO Andrew Baker cut through the noise to explore what it takes to navigate AI from an IT leadership perspective.

Attendees at the 2026 IT Indaba, Africa’s largest IT conference and expo, learnt how to drive AI success as shadow IT becomes harder to control.

Ankit Shah, chief data officer at Virgin Active, urged technology leaders at the 2026 IT Indaba to look beyond generative AI to quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography and blockchain. He spoke during a session titled Beyond AI: Navigating quantum computing, blockchain and the next digital frontier.

An interactive workshop at the 2026 IT Indaba explored how organisations can move AI prototypes into business operations, focusing on measurable value, governance, security and practical implementation.

Having diverse employees in the room means little if their perspectives do not influence decisions. Organisations must look beyond representation and create environments where different ways of thinking can contribute to business performance.

Can consumers trust a system making automated decisions about them? At the 2026 IT Indaba, panellists unpacked the concept of “digital ethics by design”, explaining why human oversight remains mandatory even as multi-agent AI networks and super-intelligence redefine corporate decision-making.

iOCO debuted its new AI software engineering framework at the 2026 IT Indaba, in which governance is embedded directly into the software delivery lifecycle. The framework showcases how organisations can move at AI speed while maintaining the control, assurance and trust the enterprise demands.

The 2026 IT Indaba has filled the Sandton Convention Centre with the buzz and unmistakable energy of 2,400+ tech professionals, all coming together to connect, compare roadmaps and talk about all things technology.

Businesses do not necessarily need more data to improve performance, but better ways to interpret and use the information they already have. Speaking at the 2026 IT Indaba, Radlin Wagner, senior practice success specialist at Sage, highlighted how integration, automation and AI can help organisations turn data into actionable insights.