Privacy Policy

SA Innovation Summit is committed to protecting your personal information. We invite you to read this Privacy Policy, which explains the types of information collected and created in connection with the relevant Conference and community, how and why we use such information, who we share it with and your legal rights.

Unless indicated otherwise, this Privacy Policy relates to our use of any personal information we collect or use in relation to the following services (collectively, the “Services”):

• the events and digital format of the events hosted
• the websites and their related subdomains including those pertaining to the registration for attendance and community platform
• the Conference and community apps and the web-app;
• online surveys relating to the Conference and community;
• messages sent via the Conference and/ or community support portal; and
• the official social media channels.

Personal information processed in connection with the Services is controlled by SA Innovation Summit (Pty) Ltd.

When we provide the Services, we collect and receive information in several different ways. In many cases, you choose what information to provide, although some information is required for us to provide you the Services.

2.1 Directly from you, or approved third parties.

We collect a variety of information from you when you provide it to us directly, when we request it from you, or when you give us permission to get it from a third party source.

• Attendee/ Member registration information. When you register to attend a Conference or subscribe to the community, you must provide us with basic information such as name, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth. We also give you the option to provide additional information.
• Volunteer registration information. When you register to volunteer at a Conference, you must provide us with basic information such as name, address, email address, telephone number, and date of birth. We also give you the option to provide additional information.
• Payment and credit card information. When purchasing tickets to attend a Conference or subscribe to the community, you must provide us with your name, address, telephone number, email address, credit card, debit card or bank information. This information will only be shared with third parties such as our ticketing provider, who perform tasks required to complete the purchase transaction.
• Conference and/or Community app profile information. To attend a Conference, you are required to download a Conference app or the community app if a member. You will have the option of providing us with additional profile information in the Conference app, such as name and email address, and what amount of information you want to have be discoverable within the app by other attendees and partners of the Conference. Certain profile information may be included on our Featured Attendees/ member page.
• Survey responses. We may ask you to participate in optional surveys regarding your experience in order to help us improve the event, services and for related commercial purposes.
• Third party social media accounts. If you choose to connect your social media account(s) with the app or platform, we may receive certain information from that account, such as your title, picture, and other information you authorize. We may use your friends or connections lists to make recommendations in the app, for example to suggest mutual connections.
• Application Forms. When you enter or apply for a competition, exhibition, speaker or partner opportunity, you provide certain information required to access the application and evaluate it.

2.2 From your browser or device.

We automatically collect certain information from your browser or device when you use certain Services or read a message from us. 

For example, we collect:

• data regarding the device you are using, such as its unique identifier and operating system; logs will be recorded by our servers based on the information sent from your app or browser; 
• information automatically as you navigate through the site using cookies and other tracking technologies. (Information collected automatically may include usage details, email address, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies).

Information may be recorded by cookies and similar technologies when you use the Services. Please review our cookie policy for further detail on how we use cookies and similar technologies on our Services and how to opt out of these.

2.3 From public sources.

We also collect publicly available information from your social media accounts, from websites or content pieces available from the internet.  

We use your information in order to provide, operate, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services, including:

3.1 Providing and improving the requested Services.

We use your personal information as necessary to provide a service to run an event, community platform, programmes, and courses, such as to register attendees, issue tickets, network in community, facilitate information sharing with partners with whom you have consented for us to share information, and provide you with relevant connections and content during the events based on this information and your use of the app and community platform.

3.2 Communicating with you

We use your personal information to contact you regarding your registration to attend, volunteer or speak at a Conference, to notify you of any changes to our policies and practices, for commercial, sales or investment purposes, and to respond to any requests or inquiries you may submit to us. If you subscribe to marketing, such as newsletters, we will use your information as described below. We may collect information from these communications to improve our Services.

3.3 Marketing

We will use your personal information for outreach and marketing, such as to send you information about our future events and programs that might be of interest to you. You can opt-out of these communications by using the unsubscribe links in our communications at any time or update your preferences to only receive certain communication.

3.4 Advertising

We use your personal information to be able to show you advertising on products and services that might be of interest. Please also review our cookie policy for your options to control how we use cookies and similar technologies for advertising.

We rely on a number of bases to lawfully process your personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

We process your personal information:

• when necessary to perform the Terms and Conditions or to provide you with the Services;
• where you have consented to the processing, which you may revoke at any time;
• when necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise and defend legal claims;
• when necessary to protect your vital interests, or those of others, such as in the case of an emergency;
• where you have made the information manifestly public;
• where necessary in the public interest; and
• where necessary for the purposes of our, your, or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as those of partners or other attendees or volunteers.

We share information with attendees, community members, service providers, affiliates, partners, and other third parties where it is necessary to perform the Terms and Conditions, to provide the Services, and for other purposes described in the Privacy Policy.

5.1 Sharing with other attendees and Partners

Our Services provides attendees and members with the means of making connections with other attendees and community members. For example, the profile information that you choose to provide us will be accessible to other attendees/community members, subject to your settings.

5.2 Marketing

In order to further our legitimate interests in marketing the Services, we rely on third-party marketing platforms and service providers to assist us and perform certain marketing services for us.

5.3 Third party service providers

We may share your personal information to help us operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services. These third parties provide us with services including for customer support, data storage and website hosting, ticketing and payments processing, legal advice and compliance, and marketing and data analysis. These third parties are contractually required to use it only to provide their service to us, and prohibited from using it for their own purposes.

5.4 Business reorganisation

In instances where SAIS or its affiliates are subject to a reorganisation, such as a merger or acquisition of some or all of its assets, we may, in accordance with our legitimate interests, need to share information in the course of the transaction. In such circumstances, your information may be disclosed, where permitted by applicable law, in connection with such corporate restructuring, sale, or assignment of assets, merger, or other changes of control or financial status of SAIS or its affiliate.

5.5 Legal and safety reasons

We may retain, preserve, or share your personal information if we have a good-faith belief that it is reasonably necessary to (a) respond, based on applicable law, to a legal request (such as, a subpoena, search warrant, court order, or other request from government or law enforcement); (b) detect, investigate, prevent, and address fraud and other illegal activity, security, or technical issues; (c) protect our rights, property, or safety; (d) enforce our Terms and Conditions or any other agreements we have with you; or (e) prevent physical injury or other harm to any person or entity, including yourself and members of the general public.

5.6 Aggregated information

We may also share aggregated or de-identified information, such as counts of attendee job titles or their affiliated companies, with companies we do business with, including our advertisers, partners as well as other organisational members.

We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary, up to a period of three years after such information is collected, to achieve the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, such as to provide you with the Services.

As a global business, we access and transfer information around the world. If you are based in the EU, this means that we access and transfer your personal information outside the EU. The privacy protections and the rights of authorities to access your personal information in some of these countries may not be the same as in your home country. We transfer your personal information in accordance with law, and take steps to ensure that your information is appropriately protected.

You have a number of rights in relation to your information that we process. While some of these rights apply generally, certain rights apply only in certain limited cases. We describe these rights below.

8.1 Access and Porting

You can access much of your information by logging into your attendee profile. If you require access to additional information, or you do not have a Conference or member profile, please contact us. Where legally required, we will provide your information in an easily accessible format and assist in transferring some of this information to third parties.

8.2 Rectify, Restrict, Delete

You can amend, update and delete some of your information by updating you preferences when communication is sent. If you don’t receive communication and want us to amend, update or delete other information, please contact us.

8.3 Object

Where we process your information based on the legitimate interests described above, or in the public interest, you can object to the processing in certain circumstances. We will generally stop processing your information unless we have compelling grounds to continue processing, such as where needed for legal reasons. Where we use your information for direct marketing, you can always object using the unsubscribe link in such communications, changing your profile settings or by contacting us.

8.4 Revoke consent

If we have specifically asked for your consent to use your information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. For example, if we ask for your consent for direct marketing purposes, you can revoke your consent using the unsubscribe link in such communications, changing your profile settings or by contacting us.

The security of your personal information is important to us. We strive to use appropriate technical and organisational skills, tools and security measures to protect your personal information. Despite these measures, the Internet is not a fully secure environment and we cannot guarantee that your personal information won’t be intercepted or improperly accessed.

There are several ways you can stop direct marketing communications from us:

• Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails.
• In our apps, you can manage your preferences and opt out from one or all of the different push notifications by selecting or deselecting the relevant options in your phones ‘Notification Settings’ section.
• Email us at: hello@techtribeaccelerator.com

Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences while our systems are fully updated.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time so please review it occasionally. If we make material changes, we will take steps to notify you. The date of the most recent revisions will appear on the top of this page.

What are cookies and why are they important for user experience?

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device.

Cookies do lots of different and useful jobs, such as letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences. They help us understand how our website is used and improve your online experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.

2.1 Which cookies are used?

Most of the cookies we use are session cookies, which are automatically deleted from your hard disk at the end of the browser session. Session cookies are needed to help the website function. 

In addition to these we also use longer-term cookies that stay on your hard disk. On a subsequent visit it is then automatically recognised that you have previously visited us, and we know which input and settings you prefer. These cookies are stored on your hard disk and are automatically deleted after 30 days. They make our website more user-friendly, more effective and more secure. These cookies make it possible for us to show you information that is relevant to you. The sole purpose of these cookies is to adapt our content to your needs as well as to make browsing our pages as enjoyable as possible.

2.2 What data is stored in the cookies?

Only pseudonymous data is stored in our cookies. On activation, the cookie is allocated an identification number; we do not allocate personal data to this identification number. Your name, your IP address and other such data that might allow the cookie to be traced to you directly are not stored in the cookie. We receive only aggregated information, relating for example to which of our pages have been visited, which products were viewed, etc.

2.3 How can you prevent the storage of cookies?

In your browser you can enable a setting that storage of cookies is only permissible when you agree to it, and thereby prevent the further storage of cookies in the future. If you want to accept only SAIS cookies but not the cookies of our service companies and partners, you can select the browser setting ”Block third-party cookies”. As a rule, the ‘Help’ function in the menu bar of your web browser will show you how to reject new cookies and how to inactivate old ones. 

The following links provide information on how to modify the cookies settings on some popular browsers:
Apple Safari
Google Chrome
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox 

Google Analytics

This website makes use of Google (Universal) Analytics, a web analysis service from Google Inc. (www.google.com). Google (Universal) Analytics deploys methods that make it possible to analyse the use made of the website by you, e.g. the so-called “cookies”, which are text files that are stored on your computer. The information generated on your use of this website is transmitted, as a rule, to a Google server in the USA and stored there. By activating the IP-anonymise function on this website the IP address is shortened, within the member countries of the European Union or in other contracting states that were party to the agreement on the European Economic Area, before further transfer. Only in exceptional cases is the full IP address sent to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. The anonymised IP address transferred by your browser within the framework of Google Analytics is not brought together with other Google data.

You can prevent the acquisition of the data generated by the cookie relating to your use of the website (incl. your IP address) by Google, as well as its processing by Google, if you download and install the browser plug-in available here. As an alternative to the browser plug-in, you can click this link in order to prevent recording by Google Analytics on this website in the future. In this case, an opt-out cookie will be placed in your terminal device. Please note that on deleting all cookies on your computer, this opt-out cookie will also be deleted, i.e. if you still want to prevent anonymised data acquisition by Google Analytics you will have to reset the opt-out cookie once again. The opt-out cookie is set for each browser and computer. If you visit our websites from home and from your place of work, or with different browsers, you will have to activate the opt-out cookie in the various browsers or on different computers.