Emo de Medeiros lives and works in Cotonou (Benin) and in Paris. His practice is built around the holistic concept of 'contexture' – it focuses on transculturalness, the circulations, interconnections, transformations and mutations of humans, forms, myths, and merchandises in a postcolonial, globalized and digitalized world, questioning notions of origin, place, identity, and culture. His works are characterized by a serial, rhythmic and participative approach and by a mix of traditional, technological, and semiological elements in transmedia forms. He uses a wide array of mediums including among others sculpture, video, electronic music, photography, performance art, electronic music, installations, painting or appliquéed textile. His work has been shown internationally, in France (Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo), Germany (MARKK Hamburg), Brazil (Videobrasil Contemporary Art Festival São Paulo), United Kingdom, Japan, China, in the biennales of Marrakech, Dakar and Casablanca.

David Kamunyu is an independent, self-taught video game developer and the owner of the Kenya based Broken Helmet Entertainment studio. He is currently working on his first title, The Orchard, a PC-exclusive game. For this project he is covering various roles, including 3D modeler, sound editor, environment artist, and story writer, to name a few. The Orchard has been featured in the Nairobi Comic Convention, made the official list of the games featured in AMAZE Johannesburg 2017, was part of the Game Mixer South Africa program sponsored by the Goethe Institute and was a finalists at the Digital Lab Africa Competition.

Peter Gitonga is the founder of ProKraft Africa, a talent management and production company based in Nairobi, Kenya. Since its inception, ProKraft has created an enabling environment for visual artists by providing management and production support.

Dilman Dila is a writer, filmmaker, digital artist, and all-round storyteller. His books include a critically acclaimed collection of short stories, A Killing in the Sun, and a novella, The Flying Man of Stone, which was nominated for Best Novella at the Nommo Awards. He was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and longlisted for the BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition, among other accolades. His short film, What Happened in Room 13 (2007), has attracted over seven million online views, and his first feature film, The Felistas Fable (2013), won four major awards at the Uganda Film Festival in 2014.

Dennis Rwafa, known to many as Zyon Black, is a musician, producer, DJ, filmmaker, and the founder and creative director of Umuntu, an entertainment and youth media company. As a musician, Dennis spans diverse genres in electronic music and has been on rotation on local, regional and international radio playlists. Umuntu is a growing startup and is home to Zimbabwean creatives working towards creating African content for the digital generation.

Samir Taouaou is a consultant, PR, and partnership manager working in the field of communication, culture, and contemporary art. He has over 10 years of experience working with media as a journalist/art critic, PR manager, and communication consultant for numerous multinational companies and art institutions. He has been able to use his diverse experience to build a global network of top quality contacts, elaborating partnership strategies for NPOs / institutions, fundraising, and establishing a strong network in Europe and Africa. To date, for more than 2 years with Marocopedia, he aims to expand the unique cultural digitalization experience of the platform outside the frontiers of Morocco.

Amir Neihoum is the director of Tatweer Entrepreneurship Campus (TEC), an ambitious program to support the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Libya. This includes an incubator supporting 11 startups and a seed fund, which has already funded six startups and aims to support another eighteen. Amir ran the first nationwide entrepreneurship competition in Libya called Enjazi.

Karim Adduchi is an illustrator, painter, and fashion designer. Karim attended the University of Fine Arts in Barcelona and then move to Amsterdam to study fashion design at the Gerrit Rietveld School, where he graduated with the collection "She Knows Why the Caged Bird Sings" (2015). Karim draws his material from Amazigh carpets and fabrics, natural fibers, and wool hand-woven, transformed into dresses, trousers, shirts, and tunics. With this loan from his country of origin, Karim pays homage to the Amazigh woman of northern Morocco. Admiration for the courage of these women turns into divinization as suggested by his second collection, "She Has 99 Names", successfully shown in November 2017 in Amsterdam. Karim has been selected by Forbes 30 under 30, as one of the most infuential and innovative designer to follow, and awarded by the Amsterdam city with the Culture business Award for his capacity to transform culture and bring awarness and community from Morocco to the world.

Plugged in both creative and startup networks, Karim El Hamri stands for highlighting the real value of artists and uses creativity to build communities, create social impact, and boost business profitability.

Mwalimu Gregg Tendwa, often abbreviated as _mwl GT, is a teacher, designer, creator, innovator and performing artist. His work spans over 15 years of enabling pan-African development through arts, culture, technology and media and through collaborations with people and partners from across the African continent, America, and Europe. He is also the executive producer of Bengatronics Sound System and co-founder of Santuri East Africa, and can often be spotted DJing or producing shows across major festivals and venues in East Africa. _mwl GT. believes that the destiny of Africa can be changed through creativity, free-thinking and imagination, coupled with innovation, investment and the depth of cultural diversity. He aspires to be a venture capitalist to bring to life creative ideas that demonstrate ethical business acumen, innovation, and social impact. Mwalimu Gregg will curating music at African Crossroads 2019.

Andrew Banda is a governance activist who uses parody, satire, infographics, animations and other forms of art to inform the general public on what is happening around public money and social accountability. Andrew also works as a Social Media and IT assistant for ACA, Alliance for Community Action, an Zambia-based NGO promoting community participation and accountability in development.

Adrian Jankowiak is a design and creative director with a passion for connecting people, ideas, organisations and technologies. He believes structured empathy, collaboration and prototyping are key to solving problems on any scale. His work includes products, services and creative campaigns across the world, spanning new technologies, toys, consumer electronics, furniture, sanitation, events and experiences. He founded the Nairobi Design Week, an annual festival and all year community platform that brings African design to the world. Past projects include the Refugees' Pavilion at the London Design Biennale and collaborations with several European academic institutions, as well as the British Council.

Jubilian Ngaruwa is a self-taught travel documentary lmmaker from Akumazi, Nigeria. She is dedicated to telling stories that are culturally deeply rooted in Africa. She started her work as a travel documentary filmmaker in 2017 and has since shown her films on three major platforms in Africa, Popcentral TV, DSTV Channel 189, and Arcadia TV. In 2019 she received an artist grant from the British Council. Jubilian has worked in collaboration with Kuta, a young artist foundation in Ogun State, and a contributor to Pulse Nigeria in 2018. Jubilian has been featured by the BBC pidgin, Pulse Nigeria TV, The Nation Newspaper, and Ghana Travelwire News.

As the Director of Strategy at AfriLabs, Nekesa is responsible for developing and executing the strategy that ensures a thriving innovation economy in Africa driven by the power of the AfriLabs community. AfriLabs is a growing network of 225 innovation hubs in 47 African countries. For the last decade, Nekesa has worked at the heart of Africa’s technology and innovation ecosystem. Nekesa was previously the Managing Director of iHub Nairobi, where she led an open innovation culture that was integral in ensuring quick maturity of the Kenyan innovation ecosystem. She serves on the boards of Africa Tech and Creatives Group, Creatives Garage, and Missing Child Kenya.

Sherif Ashraf is an HR expert with solid administrative and multinational corporate experience. He has been working in the field of the HR for the last eight years. He has been part of the leading telecommunication and pharmaceutical companies as Vodafone and Novartis Pharma, supporting Egypt, Gulf countries and South Africa and has been working on creating and developing the HR policies, guidelines, consolidation and transformation of the HR services. He is also one of the co-founders of AlMaqarr Coworking Space/ElRehla retreats, that was established seven years ago. He is currently working as people and operations executive in these two startups. His focus is mainly on creating a unique internal environment in addition to expand the business.

Imen Wannen is a civil engineer, representative of Dar El-Harka, the first co-working space and cultural hub, created in 2016 in the medina of Tunis, Tunisia. The aim of Dar El-Harka is to allow entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas and collaborate in order to create opportunities, support the local culture, and revive the historical urban neighbourhoods of Tunis.

Mahmoud Noaman is the co-founder and CEO of M3mal for Development, providing co-working spaces and pre-incubation services for entrepreneurs in Alexandria, Egypt. Having introduced the concept of co-working in Alexandria and being the vice-curator of the Global Shapers Alexandria Hub, Noaman is considered a community leader in his hometown of Alexandria. Noaman holds a BA in Business Administration from Beirut Arab University and an MBA in International Business from Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Egypt.

Moncef Ben Rajeb is the CEO and co-founder of Qartaj, a B2B e-commerce platform, which helps artisans and producers market their products worldwide. He holds a Master's degree in Web Intelligence from Jean Monnet University and the School of Mines in Paris, France, as well as a Master's degree in Culture and Design Management from the IAE, Saint-Etienne. Moncef has been a young ambassador for the Rhône Alpes region since 2013. He is also co-founder of Carpet.plus, a solution that helps carpet artisans innovate and create new models that fit the customers' needs.

Haddis Alemayehu is a tradditional musician playing Masinqo, an Ethiopian one string instrument that has been around for more than 3000 years. Haddis has been leading the revival of the MasinQo instrument in the context of the Addis Ababa jazz and pop music scene, playing live performances with some of Ethiopia’s most famous artists, including the legendary singer Gash Mahmoud Ahmed and composer Dr. Mulatu Astatke (considered as the “father of Ethio-jazz”). He is also a founding member of the Moseb Cultural Music Group which performs regularly at Ethiopia’s National Theater.

Tatenda Kanengoni is a writer, journalist, and visual storyteller from Zibabwe. She created the concept blog Crooked Lanes, for which she colaborates with a team of writers to tell authentic stories using ethnographic research, text, photography, and video. She aims at writing the African story into history. Her work explores narratives, which involve marginalized communities. Through authentic storytelling, she tries to give them a voice and empower them.

Faisal Kiwewa is the founder and director of Bayimba Cultural Foundation which organises the Amakula International Film Festival, DOADOA | East African Performing Arts Market, the Bayimba International Festival of the Arts and the Kampala International Theatre Festival, and more. Faisal aims at strengthening the role of Bayimba in developing the arts in Uganda and East Africa and establishing lasting structures to sustain the arts by developing Lunkulu Island, its newly acquired home.

Refilwe Nkomo is a Johannesburg based multidisciplinary artist, curator, educator and community organizer. She uses various media including performance, video, text and dance to create cultural and artistic interventions, develop programs and installations. Her work is situated at the intersection of arts and social justice.

Malek Maazoun is an IT engineer and musician, passionate about world cultures. He currently plies his trade as a social entrepreneur in the field of Creative and Cultural Industries, managing three entities: Nostalgia (World Music Band), Artist without Borders (Cultural Association that organize International Artistic Residency Exchange), and Coart Creative Container, a co-working space dedicated to the Creative and Cultural Industries.

Kelvin Tersoo Jiraji is a technology entrepreneur, software developer and strategy director with a 5-year experience across four companies both in public and private sector. He has won national recommendations. In his current role, he manages a social enterprise, Agritech Hub, in Nigeria with a team of five people and 15 active volunteers. Together, they have successfully impacted over 5 startups. He has contributed to building the Nigerian innovation ecosystem in the last two years.

Mamadu Hady Sow is a young entrepreneur who focuses on agricultural activities like rearing of cows, rice farming and plantations. He is also a small scale trader, who holds a diploma from Charted Accounting ACCA. In addition, he is a final year student of Saint Monica University.

Joram Mwinamo is the founder and managing director of Wylde International, an innovative firm that helps entrepreneurs and innovators grow and achieve their ambitions as profitable and/or sustainable enterprises. He has worked with more than 400 entrepreneurs in Kenya and beyond. Joram has also worked with clients in nine African countries, and two Asian clients. He has worked as a mentor in Enpact, a program mentoring startups based in Berlin. He is passionate about seeing Africans succeed globally, and has dedicated his life to making that vision become a reality.

Adnen Ben Hadj Yahia is an entrepreneur and activist working in the intersection of business, human rights, and sustainability. In the past seven years, he founded several startups and non-profit organizations. Adnen was inspired by the global impact-driven movements, which led him to co-found EL SPACE, the first social innovation hub in Tunisia.

Asmaa Guedira is a catalyst wearing multiple hats: activist, artist, consultant, speaker, writer and facilitator. A Moroccan-French nomad, she strives to build bridges between different cultures. Asmaa mainly explores the links between gender, social innovation, digital transformation, decentralized organization and collective intelligence. She believes that collaborative communities offer new alternatives to social and economic development. She started her career as a business consultant at PwC Paris before prototyping her life as a permanent laboratory, learning and sharing what she explores with entrepreneurs, activists, creatives and change leaders in more than 30 countries.

Azza Satti is the founder of North East Agency in Nairobi, Kenya. Before moving back to Kenya she spent a decade in New York where she produced art, theater, film and design events. Azza is also a film curator and an improv theater educator driven by the mission to connect people with social issues through the arts. Azza has a Master's degree in Art and Public Policy from Tisch School of the Arts from New York University, and a Bachelor's degree in Media and Film Studies from Hunter College.

Abdellah Mallek is the founder of Sylabs, a Tech and Entrepreneurship Hub in Algiers, and works on empowering young Algerians who want to start their own businesses, or gain new skills. In less then four years, Sylabs has helped tens of small businesses start or grow their activities, and gathered a community of thousands people sharing the same passion for tech, digital and entrepreneurship. Abdellah was listed among Forbes Africa 30 under 30 class of 2018.

I am a unique talented executive professional with over 15 years, accustomed to working efficiently in a variety of disciplines that include leadership, management industry with pro-activeness, organization’s human resource capital investment, financial resources that contribute to strategic objectives and stakeholder expectations. I have flair of combining governance, operations and planning management skills with the ability to analyse and formulate public policy, interpret technical and management reports with effective communication. My proficiencies span from national, regional and global levels with […]

Boniface Mwalii is a communications consultant with 10 years experience in the media & entertainment sector. He has worked as a lifestyle correspondent for the Sunday Nation and served as a PR and marketing point person for various organizations in Kenya. He is the co-founder of Mfalme Productions, the home of Kenya’s award winning animation series, Makarao. Boniface is a a founding member of the Entertainment & Arts Journalists Association of Kenya (EAJAK) and full member of the Public Relations Society of […]

I’m Kudzai ‘TaNyaKu’ Ngundu, Artist and Co-Founder over at AfroTokyo. An award winning Creative Network specializing in Preproduction and Concept Art, across the Arts and Entertainment industry, from Edutainment, Ads and Commercials, to Manga, under the slogan ‘Japanese Art, Brewed in an African Pot’….

Charmaine Chitate is an interdisciplinary artist working with computer based media as an anchor. Her work is an exploration of her understanding of identity. It is complimented by photojournalism and VR/AR content production. In September 2018, the FNB Joburg Art Fair listed her as one of the Top 20 contemporary African artists who have ‘the potential to shape and inspire the global art scene – both now and into the future.’ A member of the Project Management Institute’s Zimbabwe Chapter […]

Ongere is a Pan-Africanist perched at the intersection of arts, tech and advocacy to champion positive narratives by Africans about Africa. He is currently working with creatives across East Africa to produce counter-hegemonic content that challenges the shrinking civic space across Africa. His past experience is in advocacy at the regional, and international level across digital rights and civic space issues. Presently, he is conducting research on the use of digital technologies in creative production, and New Ways of Working […]

Ridwan Tukale is a Communication Specialist, Web Developer, and a Digital Marketing/Media Consultant, Interested in Technology, Entrepreneurship and Innovations.

In 2010 Dr.Cavallo obtained a Ph.D. in Communication and New Technologies from IULM University with a thesis on participatory media and democracy in Africa while working for UN/DESA and co-founding Cultural Video Foundation NGO and Cultural Video Production Ltd. a creative Hub known as TheNrbBus. He is currently an affiliated post-doctoral researcher at Oxford University where he works on the project Conflict-Net, research that focuses on Somalia, digital media, emerging migration narratives, national identities, and state-building. He has been a Berlinale Talent in 2018 and 2019, awarded by the VFF as Best Talent Producer at the Berlinale Co-Production Market in 2019 with the film proposal Bufis, supported by the World Cinema Fund. He has also been selected at the Venice Biennale Gap with the interactive VR project African Space Makers. Dr. Vincenzo Cavallo, also known as Dr. Faras in East Africa, is both an academic researcher and a creative digital media producer, he directed and co-produced an awarded feature film, a 12 episode tv series, an 11 episodes web series, the first African VR interactive series of five episodes and more than fifty documentaries on social, political, cultural and humanitarian issues. His first feature film WAZI?FM received among other awards the Golden Dhow at the 18th edition of the Zanzibar Film Festival (ZIFF). His first web series Connection House has been awarded at Roma Web Fest 2016 for best direction and Berlin Web Fest 2017 for best comedy. He co-produced, wrote, and directed a 12 episode TV series on Afro-Colombian music Pasos de Cumbia that won the CNTV (Chile) award and the Co-production award of RTVC (Colombia) and was nominated at the “Premio India Catalina” in 2016.

Born in 1987 in Casablanca, Soukaïna Aziz El Idrissi lives and works as a visual artist and surface designer in Casablanca, Morocco. She studied in London at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design where she procured a BA (Hons) in Textile Design specialized in weave and later went on to get an MA in Design, Craftsmanship and Entrepreneurship at Northumbria University.   Soukaïna spent 9 years (2005 – 2014) in London where she studied, taught and participated […]