The 17th European Conference on Knowledge Management was held at the Ulster University in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 1 and 2 September 2016. More than 200 delegates from academia, private and public sector from more than 40 countries all over the world attended this event. 120 academic papers, 13 PhD research papers, 1 Masters research paper, 1 non-academic paper and 4 work-in-progress papers on current research in Knowledge Management was presented. The first keynote was delivered by Alistair Fee, a European specialist in Design Thinking and Innovation. The topic of his presentation was “What does it take to deliver knowledge these days?” The second day’s keynote was by Commandant Barry Byrne of the Irish Defence Forces. He presented on “IKON, a case study of a multi award winning Knowledge Management programme in a 9000+ organisation.”
As part of the Conference the annual Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital Excellence Awards competition are also held. The purpose of this competition is to find creative and innovative applications of KM and IC techniques and concepts and to show case best practices and examples of how KM and IC is applied in practice. For this competition 40 entries from 17 countries were evaluated by a judging panel. In the second round 20 entrees had to present a detailed submission on their projects. From this a final group of seven were chosen who had to present their case studies in front of the panel and interested delegates. A final group of three had then to present their case studies to the full audience. The winners of The 2nd Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital Excellence Award for 2016 was awarded to Dr Andrew Kok of the department of Transport and Public Works, Western Cape, and Mr J-C de Ridder, of DRMC, for their project: “Designing a KM Strategy for a Provincial Government Department.” Click here for the presentation slides of this case study at the 2016 SA KM Summit.

Dr Andrew Kok of the department of Transport and Public Works, Western Cape, and Mr J-C de Ridder, of DRMC at the 2016 ECKM in Belfast, Ireland. They were awarded a first place in the Excellence Awards for their case study.