Fak’ugesi Digital Innovation Festival is a powerful centrepiece for the collaborative culture of art, futurism and technology emerging in Africa, the continent with 70% of its people younger than 15.
The festival is founded and directed by the interactive media artist and lecturer at the digital art department at Wits, Tegan Bristow. It has grown with the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Braamfontein, a pivotal location for technology and innovation with skills development and incubation programmes, particularly the Maxum Incubator, which focuses on animation, gaming and virtual reality.
“From a university perspective, we feel the festival stands alone to serve communities outside of Wits and we want to see this continue,” says Bristow.
“There is an important audience of young people in Braamfontein and the inner city that are central to our access objectives. We have also reached out to many of the private design, animation and creative technology education institutions.”
The fourth annual festival, under the theme Brave Tech Hearts Beat as One, attracted 4,500 people to the Tshimologong precinct and many more online through social media, making it a global pioneering initiative with events such as CairoTronica in Egypt, Arts Electronica festival in Linz and the Dutch Electronic Art Festival in Rotterdam. Read more