Cape Town’s Urbian kickstarts innovation and ideas sharing with DisruptHR

Published: Thursday, April 6, 2017

Exhibitions & Events

Faced with a world of work that is fast paced, ever changing and increasingly dominated by nimble startups and scale-ups, business leaders are under pressure to change their internal playbooks.

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First South African DisruptHR event to be held on 4 May. Speaker submissions now open.

Faced with a world of work that is fast paced, ever changing and increasingly dominated by nimble startups and scale-ups, business leaders are under pressure to change their internal playbooks.

Cape Town’s Urbian kickstarts innovation and ideas sharing with DisruptHR

Faced with a world of work that is fast paced, ever changing and increasingly dominated by nimble startups and scale-ups, business leaders are under pressure to change their internal playbooks.

Having seen firsthand the need for innovation and agility within established enterprises, Urbian - a Cape Town-based company - is partnering with a global information exchange forum called DisruptHR. Urbian specialises in the design of digital products and services and will be hosting the first South African DisruptHR event on Thursday, 4 May.

Every DisruptHR event aims to inform and empower executives and leaders in the human capital sphere by providing a safe space to share ideas and network.

"With the launch of Hi5, an Urbian product designed to help small to large organisations manage, grow and appreciate staff, we noticed that businesses appear to be great on the outside - yet internally there was something disparate,” explains Gary Willmott, Urbian co-founder and managing partner. “We’ve also noticed this when working on innovation projects for large organisations - most of the time, onerous processes and culture are restricting them from any sustainable success.”

Spurred by technological development and the growing influence of millennials and digital natives in the workplace, there is a global shift happening within the enterprise environment. This shift is demanding that HR professionals and leaders rethink their approach to management and employee empowerment.

“After DisruptHR approached us, we thought this would be an amazing opportunity to bring a dynamic platform to South Africa to assist local companies with thought leadership and information exchange around this critical challenge,” adds Willmott.

DisruptHR events take place in the evening and attendees can expect short and focused talks from professionals who want to share their ideas around innovation and talent development. The concept borrows from that of Ignite, so each speaker will have five minutes to motivate and inspire. For those interested in speaking, presentations pertaining to talent - in any context - are encouraged.

“The audience is invited to interact - clap, laugh, cry, tweet, text and just play nice,” says Willmott. “This is an ideal platform for those looking to accelerate innovation, kickstart new ideas and learn from interesting successes and failures.”

The first local DisruptHR event will take place on Thursday, 4 May at Urbbian's office at 6:30PM, 30 Barnet Street, Gardens, Cape Town. The deadline for speaker submissions is Thursday, 6 April 2017.

For more information, visit disrupthr.co.

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