As part of the Afrique Créative programme, each laureate is supported by a dedicated mentor, tasked with helping them develop as a creative and cultural entrepreneur. Coming from diverse backgrounds, the mentors use their expertise to meet the specific needs and overcome the challenges of each mentee. Their role is to listen, guide, direct, stimulate, and encourage mentees in their development. With their expert advice, mentors help companies clarify and refine their strategic vision.
To go even further, Afrique Créative offers everyone the opportunity to meet their mentor in person and thus develop an even closer collaboration.
These field immersions can take different forms. Sometimes, the mentor visits the mentee's company for a week of intensive exchanges. Otherwise, the entrepreneur joins their mentor at a major professional event, such as a forum, market, or festival. These special moments not only strengthen the mentor-mentee relationship, but also allow for deeper insights into the mentor's advice in a concrete and contextualized manner.
Some recent examples:
- David Masson, game design expert, went to Dakar to visit the studios of Kayfo Games (Senegal). They worked on the evolution of their gaming platform Kayfo Play and enriched their games catalog.
- Charly Kodjo, founder ofInstant2Vie (Côte d'Ivoire), joined his mentor Edima Otuokon in Lagos (Nigeria) during the Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards (AMVCA). It was a unique opportunity to meet distributors, present his latest feature film, and build relationships within the English-language film industry.
- Sarah Mallia, from the studio Freehand Movement (Kenya), was present at the International Animated Film Market (MIFA) in Annecy, France, alongside her mentor Ariane Suveg, in order to develop her network, to be able to approach distributors, producers and financiers, and also to promote their flagship series, Uli & Tata.
