Rebranding The South African Ideas Festival
The South African Ideas Festival (SAIF) is an entrepreneurial festival in which youth–aged 14 to 19–are equipped with leadership and entrepreneurial skills. The festival allows participants to discuss and design innovative ways to spark change in their community.
SAIF has been running for 9 years now, and each year the impact only grows stronger. So far, hundreds of young people have been provided with the necessary skills to be change-makers. We inspire transformational leadership through entrepreneurship and charge the youth to penetrate the world of entrepreneurship, thus putting Africa on the map in terms of business development.
SAIF 2021 was held virtually from 20th — 28th February 2021 with over 100 participants representing 10 countries; its reach and influence has expanded to youth from all over the African continent. This year’s festival theme was “Unlocking Entrepreneurial Development Through Profitable Passions — Serving Communities Through Passion,” where we aimed to give passion-specific entrepreneurial tutoring as well as teaching general entrepreneurial skills to young people.
Change is constant, and rebranding is essential; it allows us to reflect and showcase growth. For that reason, our website was completely renovated by Element Technologies. Additionally, we held a logo competition pre-SAIF at the African Leadership Academy’s campus in August 2020. People submitted their designs for a new and improved SAIF logo, and we picked the amazing Alli Ajagbe as the winner.
Alli started pursuing Graphic Design in 2018 and has already been a part of industries such as Precious Art Initiative, Zlance, Learnblue, Sozo Networks, and more. He is a Google certified digital marketer and now works as the Director of Digital Marketing in the African Leadership Consultancy Group (ALGC). His art and design journey started as a hobby, and now he can’t go a day without designing. Alli says, “My most important core value is exponential empowerment, which is impacting someone else in the hope that that person will impact others.” He has achieved so by working with Teen World Empowerment and training over 250 scholars.
As SAIF expands, we strive to continue strengthening the brand. We are continually becoming catalysts, using our brand to leverage the brands of upcoming entrepreneurial initiatives by young people from across the African continent.
Contributors:
Chizoma Duru-Director of Administration (South African Ideas Festival)
Macdonald Chirara-Director of Marketing (South African Ideas Festival)
