Two seasons, twenty episodes and more than sixty thousand plays across eighty countries later, The Africa and Everywhere Festival and its convener, Oge Elumelu, wanted the conversation to leave the internet and land somewhere young people could use it. The first edition of the festival ran for a single day and took the practical shape of a careers fair with four panels educating on the arcs of working life which includes how to get hired, how to climb, how to handle money, and when to stop looking for a job and build one.
Convener, Africa and Everywhere Festival, Oge Elumelu, declaring the inaugural edition of the festival open in Lagos recently.
Standing at the centre of the stage, Oge Elumelu traced the short but rapid journey that had brought everyone into the room, from a podcast that had run for two seasons and twenty episodes to an audience reaching across more than eighty countries and gathering over sixty thousand plays.
Helping people understand different industries had been rewarding, Oge Elumelu said, but it was no longer enough on its own. “How can we make sure that it translates to actual, tangible impact in young people’s lives?” she asked, and the festival was her answer, an attempt to turn an online community into an offline one and to build, in her words, a place “where opportunity is able to meet talent.”
Nigeria and much of the continent hold a vast and growing population of young people, she noted, and yet the road from graduation to a first job remains narrow. “We don’t want to just talk the talk, but really walk it,” she told the room, explaining that the gathering had therefore taken the practical shape of a one-day speed-dating internship and careers fair built to upskill young people and place real work experience in their hands.
Before she stepped back, she thanked the small internal team who had built the festival with her, along with the sponsors and partner organizations whose backing had turned an idea into a room full of people.
