The annual conference of the International Council for Knowledge Management (ICKM) took place for the first time in Africa from 4-6 September 2012, hosted by the Department of Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).​

The topic of the conference was Rethinking Knowledge Management: foresight in the 21st century.

The four keynote sessions were led by Mr Camilo Sequeira from the Catholic University in Brazil and Dr Johan van Zyl of Toyota. Delegates also engaged with other recognised leaders of knowledge management and competitive intelligence such as Prof Jonathan Calof (University of Ottawa, Canada), Dr Piet Steyn (Eskom), Prof Joyline Makani (Dalhousie University, Canada) Prof Taghreed Alqudsi-Ghabra (Kuwait University), Prof Franz Barachini (Vienna International School of Thought, Austria) and Prof Chris Stary (Knowledge Management Competence Centre, Austria).

A panel discussion with invited speakers from government, international organisations and the private sector was also held on how practitioners can better understand the underlying challenges and opportunities for knowledge economy development.

South African Dr Herman van Niekerk from Suritec was recognised for his paper, which he presented at the conference, when he received the best paper award.

“Herman’s award shows that knowledge managers in South Africa were by far the best at the conference. We already knew that knowledge management is on a high level in South Africa when submitting the proposal to organise the conference in 2010,” founding member on the Council board Prof Adeline du Toit said.

Knowledge management practitioners are invited to become members of this international knowledge management professional body. Go to the website at www.ickm.net and click on ‘membership’ to get access to the application form.​