Running from September 8 to 20, 2025, at MADhouse by Tikera Africa, the programme brought together 25 participants for intensive daily sessions, with up to 100 others joining at different points during the opening and closing ceremonies. 

The school targeted young men between the ages of 18 and 25, giving them a platform to develop skills needed to scale through Nigeria’s growing creative economy.

The training went beyond cameras and editing suites as participants engaged in photography, cinematography, sound editing, graphic design, and content creation. 

Sessions also included business of creativity, etiquette, and financial literacy. Canon Miraisha added a three-day beginner’s photography class combining classroom lessons with outdoor practice. Two outstanding students received Canon Selphy CP1000 printers.

The initiative attracted some of Nigeria’s most respected professionals as mentors and facilitators. Names such as Femi Odugbemi, Bayo Omoboriowo, Daniel Etim Effiong, Osarume Akenzua, Tayo Adetunji, Precious Eniayekan, Uncle Sele and David Adetola were part of the faculty, each sharing insights drawn from years of industry experience.

Speaking on Canon’s vision, Somesh Adukia, managing director of Canon Central and North Africa, said, “Through the Miraisha Programme, Canon is deeply committed to investing in Africa’s youth by equipping them with the skills, confidence, and support needed to succeed in today’s creative industries. 

“Our ongoing collaboration with Debra’s Palace Initiative reflects our belief that creativity is not only a pathway to employment but also a driver of positive social change. Together, we’re building opportunities that will inspire the next generation of African storytellers and leaders.”

For Damilola Chinedu, founder of Debra’s Palace Initiative, the programme fills a gap in society, “We believe every boy deserves the opportunity to develop his talent and grow into a man of vision, impact, and integrity. The Creative Summer School provides a safe and inspiring space where participants develop the skills and confidence to pursue their dreams.

“Partnering with Canon Miraisha allows us to prepare boys not just for careers, but for meaningful lives of leadership.”

The Miraisha Programme, which has already trained over 7,000 young people in 11 African countries, is part of Canon’s broader mission to nurture the next generation of creatives. Its goal is to reach 10,000 beneficiaries by 2030. 

Previous collaborations have included projects with Kings & Queens Art Academy in Nigeria, Maono Africa in Kenya, and the Lens on Life Project in Cameroon.

Debra’s Palace Initiative, a non-profit organisation focused on empowering boys, has also recorded strong impact with more than 3,500 participants engaged through its conferences, mentorship tours, and scholarship schemes. 

The Creative Summer School is one of its flagship collaborations, aligning with its mission to shape boys into confident and responsible men.

With this latest edition, both Canon and Debra’s Palace Initiative are creating opportunities that extend beyond employment, building a generation of African creatives who can lead, inspire, and drive change in their communities.

According to the 2023 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford, some 534 million people live in poverty across the region.

We still fall behind on other developmental indices too. Data from the World Bank shows that nearly half the region’s population doesn’t have access to electricity and, according to the World Economic Forum, just 39% of people in the region have water connected to their homes.

Mobile internet connectivity rates are similarly low, at 40%, according to GMSA. While it’s important that governments and private sector partners across the region work to address those infrastructural challenges, additional action is required too.

It’s equally critical that people, particularly in low-income communities, are given the skills they need to build sustainable jobs and livelihoods.

Doing so is crucial not only to lifting people out of poverty but also to the long-term future of these communities.

A sustainable path out of poverty 

The absolute key word, when it comes to building livelihoods that help people escape poverty, is sustainability.

While initiatives like public works programmes can help provide income boosts, particularly in poorer areas, the work is often temporary. That means that, once a road is repaired, trees are planted, or a park is cleaned up, the work goes away until the next project comes up.

In many cases, these programmes also don’t come with skills development components. That, in turn, means that people are left dependent on these programmes, rather than being able to build sustainable livelihoods for themselves.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. The right investments, made in the right ways and the right places, can help create sustainable jobs and develop skills that offer people a sustainable path out of poverty.

In fact, companies across the region are desperate for skilled workers. While more current statistics are difficult to find, it’s telling that a majority of private African companies, according to Statista, reported losing out on revenue because of skills shortages in 2019.

These skills shortages are keenly felt even in the region’s most industrialised economies. In South Africa, for example, the Mail & Guardian reported that there were more than 77,000 jobs available but which couldn’t be filled due to a skills shortage. That’s in addition to the 300,000 jobs that have been outsourced to people who live overseas.

It’s critical, therefore, that investors in the region look at ways of building skills development into their investments.

Inclusive empowerment 

It’s also important to note, however, that it’s also critical to empower and upskill people across the region from an entrepreneurial perspective.

Take East Africa’s boda-boda drivers for example. Along with their motorbikes, these drivers fulfil numerous roles, from acting as single-person taxis to delivery services. From the urban centres in Uganda to the most remote villages, boda bodas are quick, inexpensive, and readily available to get the people where they need to be.

They also provide a huge boost to small business owners who make substantial savings while using boda bodas to transport goods across the country.

For many people struggling to earn a sustainable livelihood, the boda boda business has enabled them to become entrepreneurs and indirectly offers employment opportunities to many others. With properly structured loan investments, these drivers can grow their businesses, and boost their income.

Over time, they may even be able to employ other drivers, which not only aids with job creation but also in boosting local economies.

We’ve witnessed how powerful the right credit-based approach can be with our own portfolio company Watu Credit.

To date, Watu has created over 3,000 direct jobs and has provided over 600,000 loans across seven countries, which have positively impacted the lives of more than 3.6 million people.

Unleashing Africa’s full potential 

Ultimately, what these examples show is how powerful the right approach to African investment can be. By focusing on long-term sustainable job creation and skills development, many more people will be pulled out of poverty, to the benefit of both themselves and the communities they live and work in.

And given the immense potential waiting to be unleashed across the continent, it’s an investment approach that could deliver seriously rich dividends.

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This is the view of Genevieve Koolen, Human Resources Director at SAP Africa. “Interest in technologies such as artificial intelligence is at an all-time high as organisations throughout the African continent seek to unlock the efficiency and innovation gains offered by such technologies. However, in many cases an acute and ongoing shortage of critical tech skills is undermining organisations’ efforts at adopting new technologies, preventing them from building new capabilities or effectively driving innovation.”

Skills crunch affecting organisations

Research published by SAP earlier this year found that four in five African organisations were affected negatively by a lack of tech skills. Three-quarters of organisations also cited additional pressure on existing teams due to a lack of available tech skills, with 41% reporting employees were either leaving or planning to leave due to the pressures caused by understaffing.

“Business leaders and their HR teams are under pressure to ensure the organisation has access to a ready supply of work-ready skills,” says Koolen. “However, new talent is not being added to the skills pool quickly enough, and many organisations simply don’t have the internal processes and initiatives needed to develop new skills internally or upskill or reskill existing employees.”

Lack of preparedness affects access to skills

In a study by McKinsey, some 87% of global senior executives said their companies were not adequately prepared to address the skills gap. Koolen says one of the undesired outcomes of a lack of planning around tech skills is the so-called recycling of talent, where organisations rehire from the same pool of qualified candidates instead of developing and retaining new talent.

“Talent retention is complicated by organisations all vying for a limited number of talented candidates. Instead, organisations should seek to develop and nurture their own talent, drawing on their skills base and upskilling or reskilling employees for new roles and duties.”

Koolen points to three strategic priorities that can improve tech skills availability within African organisations, namely:

1. Develop internal skills as a priority

There is a gap between companies’ stated intention of developing internal skills, and the measures they put in place to achieve this. SAP’s research found that 75% of African organisations plan to fill their tech skills gap through skills development for current employees.

“However, only 28% offer such training opportunities at any time, with a full quarter saying they only offer training and skills development once a year or upon special request,” explains Koolen. “Considering the pace of technological change and the rapid impact of technologies such as artificial intelligence, organisations should seek to build a culture of continuous and ongoing learning.”

In some cases, this may involve greater investment of available HR and IT budgets toward skills development. “Only 7% of African organisations currently spend more than 20% of their IT or HR budgets on skills development, leaving significant room for greater investment to address the skills scarcity.”

2. Focus on the employee experience

The ‘Great Resignation’ that followed the lifting of lockdown restrictions in 2020 and 2021 – where employees left their jobs in record numbers – highlighted to lack of engagement many employees felt with their work.

“Quiet Quitting and other forms of disengagement with work have a direct impact on an organisation’s ability to remain competitive,” says Koolen. “With some studies suggesting only 21% of employees globally are engaged at work, companies have a tremendous task ahead to re-engage their employees.”

As a result, Employee Experience has emerged as a major priority in companies’ talent attraction and retention strategies. SAP research revealed that 70% of African organisations use an Employee Experience or Human Capital Management tool, with a further 25% saying they want to use such tools.

“By connecting their data, people, and processes, companies can improve the business insights they derive from HR and build a total workforce management strategy that closely supports broader company objectives while delivering the employee experiences that improve retention and boosts engagement.”

3. Build a culture of inclusion

Diversity and inclusion initiatives have gained ground over the past few decades to become strategic imperatives for any high-performing company.

McKinsey suggests gender-diverse organisations are 25% more likely to outperform their less diverse competitors, while ethnically-diverse organisations are 36% more likely to do so.

“Encouragingly, nearly two-thirds of African organisations that formed part of our research offer fully-developed diversity and inclusion programmes, with a further 31% saying they are in the process of developing one.”

She adds that diversity and inclusion brings benefits to the business that extend beyond skills availability. “Diverse companies have been proven to be more innovative, have better problem solving capabilities, and financially outperform their less diverse peers.”

The achievement is the result of Vodacom’s unwavering commitment to the ideals of B-BBEE, aimed at attaining economic transformation for historically disadvantaged people.

Vodacom SA’s B-BBEE verification has been based on the Amended ICT Codes of Good Practice for Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Gazetted on 7 November 2016 and its seven components of the B-BBEE scorecard.

These components are Ownership, Management control, Employment equity, Skills development, Preferential Procurement, Supplier Development, Enterprise development and Socio-economic development. Vodacom posted significant improvements on all seven components of the score card.

Additionally, Vodacom Group (which comprises of the consolidation of all locally owned subsidiaries) retained its Level 1 B-BBEE status for the third consecutive year.

Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO said: “This is a fantastic achievement that clearly demonstrates our strong commitment to the transformation agenda and is testament to our commitment towards the transformation of this economy. For us at Vodacom, B-BBEE is not something we do to get points. As a company with deep local roots, we fully embrace transformation and its ideals which, among other things, aim to provide women with equal work opportunities so they can contribute meaningfully in the mainstream economy.”

Some of the contributors to the new score of Level 1 B-BBEE status include:

As part of Vodacom’s commitment to continuous employment through skills development of its employees, the company invested R296 million in skills development.

The investment takes into consideration amongst other costs, internal and external bursaries, training of staff members, graduate and learnership programmes, training of youth across the country through the Youth Academy.

For instance, of the 165 learnerships opportunities it created, it ensured employment of 109 candidates on a full-time basis for the year, of which 53 were employed into the company.

Just over R16.2 million was spent on skills training for black people living with disabilities.

On Management Control (Board), Vodacom improved the gender profile of the board of Vodacom (Pty) Ltd, which now is made up of 80% B-BBEE black board members and 50% being black women board members.

On preferential procurement, Vodacom spent R45 billion on all suppliers with B-BBEE status.

SA’s leading mobile provider spent R17.5 billion to greater than 51% black-owned suppliers in addition to the R18.5 billion the company spent on suppliers that had greater than 30% black women ownership.

It also paid out R2.1 billion to black SMME suppliers within less than five days of invoice during the 2021/2022 financial year. This demonstrates Vodacom SA’s commitment to the survival and sustainability of black SMMEs.

A focus on enterprise creation and development is key to the ICT sector. In the past financial year alone, Vodacom’s total investment in enterprise development amounted to R405 million.

As an active corporate citizen, Vodacom is a pioneer of social transformation through ICT. In the past financial year, the company invested over R199 million in community projects to transform the lives of black people through the Vodacom Foundation.

“We are serious about the transformation agenda and the development of South Africa and we won’t be deterred in our resolve to play an active role in moving South Africa forward by driving meaningful and sustainable transformation programmes to afford historically disadvantage people the opportunity to participate in the mainstream economy,” concluded Joosub.