African art tech creation honouring African tech innovation leaders
When talking about arts and culture, we may instantly think about masterpiece, contemporary art or Chinese paintings. But one of the trending arts is from Africa and there are many creations with African elements and cultures nowadays. More exciting is that recently tech experts in Africa have taken steps to share African art with art tech which is groundbreaking and user-friendly.
In Novermber 2019, CcHUB, a Nigerian technology innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity released an art project called Nyota. Nyota is referring to “the Kiswahili word for star”, including 24 African tech innovation leaders. “Every community has its champions. Nyota celebrates our champions as guiding stars for the technology and innovation ecosystems in Africa,” CcHUB noted.
CcHUB held an art tech exhibition for Nyota in which participants can find art digitally illustrated by Mayowa Alabi, an African young digital illustrator and designer with over three years of professional design experience. To view this art, simply by downloading and using an augmented reality app called “Artivive”. Even though the exhibition is already over, but everyone can still experience the digital art here by using Artivive like we did 👉!
Here are the African tech innovators included in Nyota: Tomi Davies (TVCLabs), Funke Opeke (Main One Cable), Iyin Aboyeji (An African Future), Mitchell Elegbe (Interswitch), Jason Njoku (CEO of iROKO), Sim Shagaya (Konga), Barbara Birungi (HiveColab), Omar Cisse (InTouch), Emeka Afigbo (Facebook), David Kobia (Lab1886), Estelle Akofio Sowah (CSquared), Ehi Binite (ClearSpace Labs Ltd.), Lucy Quist (Morgan Stanley London), Herman Chinery-Hesse (theSofttribe), Erik Hersman (BRCK), Rebecca Wanjiku (Fireside Communications), Ory Okolloh (Omidyar Networks), Juliana Rotich, Bitange Ndemo (UoN), Dorcas Muthoni (Openworld Ltd.), Gustav Praekelt (Praekelt Group), Strive Masiyiwa (Econet Wireless), Rebecca Enonchong (AppsTech), and Nadu Denloye (Telnet Nigeria Ltd.).
According to CEO of CcHUB Bosun Tijani, technology is Africa’s fourth industrial revolution and it is powering and impacting the lives of millions. “Those included have come up from the trenches; they have paved the way for others in a sector still in its relative infancy, albeit one that is making a massive impact on how Africa operates. Nyota is a marker celebrating all that Africa’s technology sector has achieved to date, whilst recognising how much more there is to do,” said Tijani. At the end, Tijani thanked all those took part in the exhibition and stated that they were happy to share African tech innovators’ story and success with the world via Nyota, an intersection between art and tech in Africa.