3 Nigerian creatives amongst digital lab Africa’s 2021 top 7 Africa digital arts innovators

Digital Lab Africa (DLA) has showcased the work of the winners of its 5th Digital Lab Africa awards at the Fakugesi Digital Arts Festival in South Africa.

Digital Lab Africa Programme Manager, Eduardo Cachucho, stated this in a statement made available to the newsmen in Lagos, on Wednesday.

Cachucho said that the award brought to the fore inspirational and insightful stories from diverse emerging African digital artists.

“This year’s seven winners were selected based on their artistic, technical and financial criteria in the Animation, XR and Video gaming categories.

“The winners in Animation included: Brian Wilson from Nigeria who developed a series called Aminah’s journey, about a young Hausa girl who tried to make her way to safety after a violent attack on her village by Boko Haram terrorists.

“Ssagala Ndugwa from Uganda, Founder of Sheepish, an animated adult series following the adventures of two small-time hustlers as they try to make it big in a town determined to keep them small.

“The XR winners included: Godisamang Khunou from South Africa who developed an immersive piece called Black Women and Sex, about the tension between black women and the politics of sex.

“Arome Ibrahim from Nigeria is the creator of Virtuality Africa, a virtual arts museum on mixed media and immersive technology, showcasing Africa’s rich history in arts.

“The winners in the Video Gaming category included Karen Andriamamonjy from Madagascar, who created Kalanoro, a third-person platform adventure game that also explores Malagasy folklore.

“Ifeanyichukwu Obi from Nigeria who created Mama Julie, an infinite Isometric 3rd runner game centred around Mama Julie, who runs through the streets of Lagos to deliver food to her customers.

“Ismael Daouda Nouhoun from Togo, who is the brain behind action-packed video game, I can Transform, a video game available on Android and the Web.

Speaking on the winners’ selection, Cachucho said that the Digital Lab Africa (DLA) remains one of the most exciting opportunities for digital creatives all across Africa.

“The emerging digital arts talents have been offered a foundation to fast track their project development and are supported by the DLA creative industries ecosystems in the countries of Africa, France and the world.

“We are grateful for our sponsors and partners for making this a possibility over the years and we are also looking forward to sharing more about our DLA 2022 opportunities which will launch in February 2022, ”he said.

The DLA Award guest speaker, Hugo Obi, said that the programme had been quite a great journey.

“This is my second year as a judge on the DLA gaming stream and it is always a pleasure discovering new creators on the continent and the interesting things they come up with.

“I feel Africa still remains significantly untapped in the gaming segment because we do not have a lot of local content creators in that space.

“I see this changing in the next 2-3 years as we are seeing a lot more investment in this space with programmes like DLA supporting creators in this segment, ”he said.

Digital Lab Africa is an initiative of the French Institute and the French Embassy in South Africa and is supported by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD),The French Embassy in Nigeria and other partners.