Category Archives: career development

The Creative Sector in 2020

The Africa Digital Media Foundation (ADMF) has published a comprehensive report on the state of the creative sector in Kenya and the needs, challenges, and ambitions of its participants. ADMF started the study with a questionnaire that was widely circulated and completed the research in July 2020 using online forums and tools.

Summary of their findings:

  • There is a willingness in the Kenya creative entrepreneurs to make things better for everyone.
  • Success breeds success and the creative population is divided between those that have made it (and keep grabbing jobs and clients) and those that have not (less- established creative entrepreneurs who may have few years of experience, little commercial and financial success)
  • All want opportunities to learn more; they accept that technology evolves and new products require new skills.
  • Banks don’t understand; formal credit and financing options aren’t considered viable options by creatives; their financing is limited to sourcing from friends and family.
  • Almost everyone had a story about doing work and not receiving payment as agreed from the client.

Other interesting findings in the report:

  • Top engagements are in TV/video production, writing/journalism, graphic design, animation and finally photography (all have more than 10%). Some small categories with 1% are gaming, event planning and jewellery.
  • There is 50/50 split between those that have formally registered their business and those that haven’t. Of the non-registered ones, some can’t afford to lose some of their income in taxes while others do not see the benefit in registering a business, paying taxes, and accessing the supposed benefits that taxpayers enjoy, such as NHIF and NSSF.
  • 23% work in the sector part-time. Their other sources of income are teaching (7) and 4% each for farming and events equipment rental.

Check it out the full report here.

Also, read more about ADMF, and its sister institution, the Africa Digital Media Institute (ADMI). Some of the courses open for enrollment in 2021 including certificates in video game development, music production, video production, digital marketing, and Rubika 2D animation as well as diplomas in Rubika video game design, sound engineering, animation & motion graphics and film & television production.

Rewiring Education

This week, the M-Pesa Foundation Academy and Nairobi International School hosted author John Couch, who was first Vice President of Apple Inc., for a talk session on “rewiring education.” The chief guest was Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Joe Mucheru. 

Rewiring Education speakers.

Excerpts from the rewiring education Q&A: 

  • Kids come into employment fully trained in things that are no longer relevant. They then have to unlearn that, and we are working with universities to modernize the curriculum.
  • Schools have to hire teachers who are registered with the Teachers Service Commission. But those who are there only have B.Ed (Bachelor of Education degrees), and lack skills to stand in front of students who are far ahead of them in technical knowledge.
  • The Kenya government has developed a brilliant curriculum, that will start next year, but teachers have not been trained to deliver this. International schools take three years to retrain a teacher.
  • The median age in Kenya is 19 years, and half the civil service is made up of teachers.
  • The most important skill to have in life is (to embrace) continuous learning.
  • Schools can currently evaluate student memorization, but not their creativity and innovation abilities.
  • “When I was studying at Berkeley, California in the 1970’s, people thought the social revolution was taking place in the streets, but I knew it was taking place inside computers.”
  • Safaricom set out to provide connectivity to all schools in Kenya and the government was to provide the devices.
  • “The way we are teaching kids is a disservice and I am in the process of suing the UK government for wasting thirteen years of my life!”
  • The US also treats teachers as a union problem, not a professional occupation. Teachers are underpaid and under-trained.

Africa Digital Media Institute – ADMI Celebrates 5th Anniversary

This week the Africa Digital Media Institute (ADMI) celebrated its fifth anniversary. Founded in 2012 as the Jamhuri Film and Television Academy, by Wilfred Kiumi, it has gone from having 5 students to over 500 now and is well on its way to becoming Kenya’s premier film and media training school that will soon expand to Nigeria and Ghana.

via: ADMI facebook.

The school has expanded beyond film and TV production to include film & TV production, software engineering & design, digital marketing, sound engineering, music production, multimedia, animation, photography and graphic design

Founding Director Kiumi said young creatives took a long time to get international gigs and the gap is yet to be filled and this was why ADMI exists, and later, Director Laila Macharia said ADMI runs its programs to global standards, offering practical digital education so that students are earning incomes even before they graduate.

ADMI has a non-profit arm that works to help needy and deserving students with scholarships and in other ways. Now,  partners, studios, schools and other well-wishers can contribute to help even more students to get valuable training at ADMI.

ALU: Africa’s University of the Future

The African Leadership University (ALU) is a pan-African university, which aims to prepare students for jobs that don’t exist today. Their programs aim to equip students with necessary skills including entrepreneurship, leadership, critical thinking, and project management – right from their first term. They have an intense online engagement process to monitor student performance that starts right from the time students apply and then right through admissions, assignments, courses, exams and assignments.

Their current degrees on offer at their Mauritius campus are Computing (Bsc), Business Management (BA), Social Sciences (BA) and Psychology (Bsc). It opened in September 2015 and has over 200 students from over 30 African countries.  Every year, students can get up to 4  months of internship at one of the ALU partner organizations which include Cellulant, Coca-Cola, McKinsey, Tiger, IBM, PWC, Thomson Reuters,  Pernod Ricard and Swiss Re. The partners also help subsidize the cost of education at ALU where a year of tuition and accommodation is about $7,000 – a modest amount compared to the cost of university education in many countries.

They also have a study abroad program that takes 4-12 months and ALU will have an MBA program at a new campus that will soon open in Rwanda, and for which they are already accepting applications. ALU is part of the Africa Leadership Group, and has founders including Fred Swaniker, Graca Machel and Donald Kaberuka. Eventually, they plan to have  25 campuses across Africa that can host 10,000 students a year.

ALU teams are currently on road shows to promote the university in Accra, Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Lagos. They have workshops, schools visits, and other events this month as they promote the university, and they are accepting applications up to a deadline on June 5.

Celebrating African Success

There was a dinner last week in Nairobi to toast James Mwangi the CEO of Equity Bank who won the second edition of the Forbes Africa Person of the year award (edging out President Joyce Banda of Malawi, Stephen Saad, Aliko Dangote & Tony Elumelu. In capping off this award-winning year for him, he spoke about the need for Africans, and particularly Kenyans to celebrate wealth and success not to be shy & hide about it.

Forbes cover

This has been something that Ory (@kenyanpundit) has spoken of in the past and a reason that there are few interesting award events to attend – as you keep seeing the same people & companies over and over being feted or speaking at events over and over  –as if they are the only entrepreneurs in town. Yet it if you look at the construction that the construction that’s changing Nairobi from Westlands to Eastlands, with new office towers, hotels, and residential estates, this is all private sector development largely done by anonymous entrepreneurs using vague company names.

You will see a few other magazines like Management, Business Post, CIO, or some local TV shows profile a few new entrepreneurs and CEO’s but nothing like the Forbes List.

The Forbes list of Richest Africans itself may be controversial  – in the region Kenya had Naushad Merali, Tanzania has Salim Bakhresa, and Uganda had Sudhir Ruparelia, and dropping off from last year’s list were Uhuru Kenyatta, Chris Kirubi, Mohamed Al Fayed and Strive Masiyiwa.

For various reasons – modesty, not wanting your rivals to know what you’re up to, fear of revealing secrets and business interests to creditors, or even family members, some entrepreneurs are shy about celebrating their success in public or with the media. But perhaps, the biggest reason for a successful entrepreneur to keep a low profile is because the tax collectors at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) are also avid readers and viewers – and a high profile celebration, with dollar figures attached, is likely to be followed by a friendly visit by tax agents.