African Crossroads 2020 Hybrid Edition
African Crossroads hybrid event took place on December, 10th and 11th 2020. Since the beginning of the year, African Crossroads switched its activities online in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, while pursuing its mission to “create a space, physical and virtual, collective and individual, for collaboration, collective intelligence, united actions and inspiration to positively shape the future of African societies.”
The 2020 edition started as a series of monthly online gatherings from September onwards, which led to a bigger event in December held both online as well as offline. The 2-day gathering took the form of a hybrid event as the biggest part of the crowdsourced program was happening on Zoom platform for a limited number of participants. For the offline part, seven hubs throughout the continent opened their doors to members of their communities to enjoy together the online program as well as offline activities. Sanitary restrictions were thoroughly followed and specific measures were undertaken to ensure the safety of all participants. The African Crossroads network could rely on the enthusiasm and hospitality of the following hubs to host the event partly offline: Enthuse Africa (Harare, Zimbabwe), Swahili Pot Hub (Mombasa, Kenya), Barefeet Theatre (Lusaka, Zambia), El Space (Tunis, Tunisia), mHub (Lilongwe, Malawi), and hFACTOR (Lagos, Nigeria). Titled “Re-imagining the pan-African dream — reflecting on the past, experiencing the present and imagining the future”, the 2020 edition saw a rich and diverse program and a significant participation of the network’s members and beyond.
Crowdsourcing the Program
African Crossroads relies on the originality, enthusiasm and creativity of its members to create an innovative and interactive program. Just as it was done for the past two editions, the program of the 2020 edition emanated from the community itself and was carefully curated by an extended organising team, which included members of the network. Members of the network came together from across Africa and diaspora to reimagine what it feels like to be united. The event was about connecting digitally with each other to counter the physical barriers that we are currently experiencing in various forms around the country, learning from each other by bringing people from different disciplines and industries in the same (virtual) room, and experimenting with new ways of working and creating. The program was punctuated with a number of musical interventions, live performances, healing sounds and immersive playlists. While it is impossible to recreate the experience of an offline event online, it remained essential to open a space for emerging ideas and topics, spontaneous discussions and networking moments. This was the central part of the second day of AC 2020, which saw an Open Space dedicated to this. Throughout the event, participants could “jump” from one Zoom room to another, and enjoy panel discussions, workshops, music, and inspiring talks. As for the past two editions, the event was also the place to showcase collaborations and projects that were undertaken and implemented by Crossroaders during the year. These projects ranged from podcast making in the heart of Tunis’ Medina, and sound archiving in Morocco, to re-valuing crops in Sierra Leone and Tunisia, and data privacy workshops for Ugandan activists. The pan-African dream would not have been complete without the presence of the guest of honor and Zimbabwean legend Thomas Mapfumo who closed the event on Friday, December 11th with a revolutionary performance.
Looking Toward 2021
2020 has taught us that despite the distance and the restrictions on movement and mobility, it is always possible to connect, meet, and collaborate. The network proved stronger than ever in uniting effort and vision to make this last event of the year happen. The digital tools and online platform used made it possible for everyone across the continent to join. It also enabled the network to open beyond the initial members and reach new countries and regions. But it also showed the limitations of such tools to reach people in remote regions, those lacking sufficient power sources or access to sufficient data bundles. There is still a lot to work on and to build together. Luckily, we will all meet again very soon, in 2021!
You can watch or rewatch what happened in the different sessions on African Crossroads Youtube channel and find more information on the program on www.africancrossroads.org.
