CcHUB celebrates African tech leaders with augmented reality exhibition

Daniel Iyanda -

Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) — a pan-African innovation centre — has officially launched an augmented reality (AR) art exhibition to celebrate African tech leaders from Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

The exhibition, which kicked off in Kenya on November 6, 2019, will take place in CcHUB's office in Lagos and its Design Lab in Kigali, Rwanda, later next year.

The artworks for the AR exhibition, called, NYOTA by CcHUB (Nyota translates to "Star" in Swahili) were designed by Mayowa "Shutabug" Alabi Damilola, Creative Lead at CcHUB Nigeria. They were created using digital illustrations which come to life — literally, the artworks blink — when viewed through an AR app, called, Artivive. With the app placed over an artwork, you will be able to see new dimensions of the piece and download additional information about the subject.

The artist, Mayowa, is a multidisciplinary creative with strengths in graphic and motion design, photography, cinematography and vector illustrations. He started his digital illustration journey in 2016 and has made some giant strides, including winning the European Union/United Nations Women Gender Equality Picture It Comic & Cartoon competition in 2017, making mural illustrations for Facebook's NG_Hub, Gokada's Office and FCMB's Hub One.

He also made the AR portrait that was presented to Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, during his visit to Nigeria.

You can download Artivive on Google Play and App Store.

Technology is Africa’s fourth industrial revolution; it is powering and impacting the lives of millions. There are a number of personalities from across the continent who have been integral to promoting the technology-at-scale agenda in Africa. Nyota is a recognition of these tech leaders, and we are thrilled to be celebrating their work through this incredible augmented reality exhibition.

Bosun Tijani, Co-fouder and CEO of CcHUB

The 24 African technology leaders featured in Nyota are:

Nigeria

Kenya

  • David Kobia, Co-founder of Ushahidi — a non-profit technology company
  • Erik Hersman, CEO of BRCK and Co-founder of Ushahidi
  • Rebecca Wanjiku, CEO of Fireside Communications — civil, telecoms and electrical engineering design and construction services provider
  • Juliana Rotich, Co-founder of BRCK — a public WiFi provider — and Co-founder of Ushahidi
  • Bitange Ndemo, Chairman of Kenya’s Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Nairobi
  • Ory Okolloh, Director of Investments at Omidyar Networks
  • Dorcas Muthoni, CEO of OpenWorld — a leading e-government and business technology solutions provider in Eastern Africa

Uganda

  • Barbara Birungi, Founding Manager of HiveColab — an innovation hub for East African startups

Senegal

  • Omar Cissé, Founder of InTouch — a fintech startup specialized in digital payment and services

Ghana

  • Estelle Akofio-Sowah, West Africa Regional Manager at CSquared — a pan-African broadband infrastructure provider owned by Google
  • Ehizogie Binitie, CEO of ClearSpace — an Internet of Things startup
  • Lucy Quist, first Ghanaian female CEO in the telecoms industry, now Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
  • Herman Chinery-Hesse, Chairman of theSOFTTribe — the largest software company in Ghana

Cameroon

  • Rebecca Enonchong, CEO of AppsTech — a leading provider of enterprise applications solutions

Zimbabwe

South Africa