The field of digital intermediaries in the African context is poorly defined and most intermediaries are not aware that the work they do can be defined as that of an intermediary. Practitioners operating in the CCIs will identify themselves as producers, curators, distributor, aggregators, or any other support role for creatives. Digital intermediaries are those who operate in support roles for digital creatives and their products. The focus on this training programme, which is in partnership with Wits Digital Arts department, is on curation and distribution of African digital products with a clear link to the value chains of animation, gaming and AR/VR.
The animation industry in South Africa has a need to constantly innovate on its pipelines to stay competitive and to reduce the high costs of producing animation products. Thus, the Animation Production Pipeline will focus on training women graduates in innovating within an animation production pipeline. The key technical skills for the participants to be able to adequately use software programmes such as Blender, Mocap and Gaming Engine. These technical skills will be trained alongside production management as well as soft skills. This training programme is in partnership with Animation South Africa.
Given the multiple crises that the world is enduring and many others that may follow, the Future-Proof Monetisation programme provides training on leveraging technology in monetising small creative businesses and building resilient business models. Creative entrepreneurs are trained on how to take advantage of suitable technology to expand and future-proof their business monetisation. This may be from simply having an online presence, digital payment solutions to leveraging more advanced Web 3.0 applications, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and blockchain technology.
The programme includes a coaching and mentorship aspect where coaches work with entrepreneurs to find specific tech solutions to their business monetisation challenges and offer support in integrating these solutions into their creative businesses. Each training cohort of a maximum of 20 women will typically run for 8 weeks including coaching. This programme is implemented in partnership with the South African Creative Industries Incubator (SACII).
Drone Divas is a drone training and internship programme for young township-based women between the ages of 18 and 35. They are trained in drone operation, coding, drone cinematography and entrepreneurship. This is followed by a three-month paid internship programme for at least 10 of the women in creative drone companies. Being a women-only training programme, Drone Divas contributes to women’s participation in the emerging, tech-heavy, and male dominated industry while addressing income generation through support for entrepreneurship and employment. Two cohorts were implemented in Gauteng in 2021 and 2022 and two more cohorts will be implemented in the Noerthern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal provinces in 2023 in partnership with Africa Beyond 4IR (AB4IR).