On October 28 and in November 2022, Hivos’ African Crossroads will organize its fifth edition. The theme of this year’s gathering is “African Crossroads 2.0.” At the end of Crossroads 2022, participants will emerge with a blueprint that will shape the trajectory of the community in the period 2023 – 2027.
African Crossroads is a community of future-oriented African thinkers and doers which regularly meets to exchange and critically reflect on cutting-edge entrepreneurial, scientific, artistic, and technological developments, anchored in African intellectual and technological traditions.
This year’s gathering comes at a time when the community has explored its potential over the past four years, and created a prototype of what this platform could look like in the future. The inaugural edition (2018) was held in Marrakech, Morocco, and it explored the role of community members in shaping Africa’s technological and intellectual revolution.
The second edition (2019) was held in Mombasa, Kenya, and explored how the community could positively shape the future of African cities. The third edition (2020) saw the community gather virtually in an effort to revisit pan-Africanism amidst lockdowns and border closures. Recently, the fourth edition (2021) explored different ways of making the Climate Justice agenda relevant and accessible to rural-urban communities across Africa.
This year, African Crossroads is scheduled to happen virtually with members logging in to dialogue, connect and collectively ideate under the theme “African Crossroads 2.0,” which will explore the imminent transitioning of the community; from the past into a new future, with participants expected to chart a clear path forward for the African Crossroads community, its activities and its partnerships.
A time to reflect & strategize
A build up event will be conducted on Friday October 28, 2022, followed by the main event on a date to be agreed upon in November, 2022. Over two days, participants will virtually share highlights of projects, achievements and memories of the community through the journey of four years.
They will aggregate outcomes, lessons, and discuss the impact experienced through cross-continental collaborations. They will brainstorm and envision the future of this community, and strategize on how to move forward in terms of membership, vision, mission, core values, operations, activities, and partnerships.
By the end of the two days, the participants will produce the African Crossroads 2.0 Blueprint, a strategy document that will guide African Crossroads for the next cycle of iteration: 2023 to 2027. It is expected that the community will turn up ready to design a future of the initiative.
About African Crossroads
African Crossroads thrives on collective intelligence, cooperative action, experimentation and reflection which aim to positively shape the future of African societies. Along the year, African Crossroads organizes a series of meetings culminating in a yearly cross-continental and multidisciplinary gathering for African designers, artists, entrepreneurs, computer scientists, researchers, and philosophers to exchange knowledge and initiatives on a common theme. Crossroads is initiated and produced by Hivos.
The platform is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
