What is Digital Lab Africa?
The Digital Lab Africa program was created in 2016. It is a pan-African acceleration program dedicated to the creative industries. We work in several areas and sectors of African digital creation: animation, video games, digital art, music, and virtual reality. Initially, the program was an initiative of the French Institute of South Africa, but today it is entirely managed by a South African tech incubator, Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct. In terms of funding, it is partly supported by the French Development Agency. The program is also supported by the TRACE, Lagardère Studios, and DISCOP groups.
You have just launched the fourth edition. Can you tell us more about it?
On January 13, we launched the fourth edition of Digital Lab Africa. The call for applications is open until March 1, 2020. Artists, students, entrepreneurs, startups, and media outlets can apply, provided they are from one of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and their projects are related to the continent.
In general, we select projects that are in development and require support in terms of mentoring. We therefore offer candidates support from a network of French or African experts in a given sector. We also enable candidates to participate in leading events. For example, for the "animation" category, we take the winners to the Annecy Animation Festival. We also offer them training sessions in conjunction with a network of partners.
Beyond training, does the DLA program include a financing component?
Beyond training, we also offer mentoring to support candidates with financing. We try to create a network, putting candidates in touch with mentors who themselves know the industry and financing channels, since that is the crux of the matter.
In the latest edition of DLA, a young Ethiopian woman, Feben Elias, won the competition in the "Animation" category with her series project entitled "Dimbit." Following her residency in France, which was part of the program, she was able to connect with producer Sébastien Onomo to work together on a co-production project. Currently in France, she has been selected for a Netflix-sponsored training course, which will take place at the Gobelins school in Paris.
How will candidates be selected?
We select two candidates for each category. In the last edition, we supported 11 projects, and we should do the same this year. At the end of the call for applications, 30 projects are selected by the members of the DLA selection committees to participate in the final pitch competition. The committees are made up of experts from the creative industries who are partners of Digital Lab Africa.
What are the ambitions of such a project?
From a global perspective, content creators on the continent face challenges in terms of training, access to financing, and visibility.
With Digital Lab Africa, we want to highlight African creativity, but also create a space for exchange and collaboration between France and the continent, so that these African creative industries can develop and flourish. We therefore want to encourage co-productions between France and Africa, but also between African countries.
We are convinced that there is a significant pool of creativity on the African continent, even if some countries are more promising than others at present. Nevertheless, there is a severe lack of training facilities. That is why we want to promote skills development in these industries, to support them and contribute to their development and professionalization.