Africa in the World

October 22-25, 2025

Stellenbosch, South Africa

View the 2024 Festival Highlights

Our Story

A Festival of Hearts and Minds

Welcome to Africa In the World, a festival that brings together the world’s most innovative thinkers and top leaders to platform invigorating ideas for fresh changes and sustainable solutions for African people. Our purpose is to spark connections and engage actions that can move African society forward. Learn more about our story and meet our founder, Dele Olojede, who believes in the power of dialogue to bring the best and brightest together in unearthing solutions that can be implemented and sustained over the long term.

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Africa In the World is an ideas festival. We have conceived it as a convening of great minds, not only to explore how the best ideas can help us solve our biggest challenges, but also to infuse the festival with spirit. That’s why we don’t call it a conference. We call it a festival of hearts and minds.

Dele Olojede

2024 Festival Highlights

If one starts to think of greening the planet as the largest purchase order in history, you start to think very differently about what decarbonisation could mean for a continent such as this.
— Nonkululeko Nyembezi #AfricaIntheWorld2024
It is possible to actually build AI that can benefit people, that can benefit the most marginalised, but for the most part, it has to be separated from the capitalist drive.
— Dr. Abeba Birhane #AfricaIntheWorld2024
For me, political morality begins when one is able to identify with any people anywhere in the world without hedging, without fudging, without relativism.
— Wole Soyinka #AfricaIntheWorld2023
There are many problems in the world that we can’t solve. Malnutrition is not one of them. We know where the children are. We know how to predict when malnutrition will hit. We know how to fix it. We can end malnutrition.
— Navyn Salem #africaintheworld2023
This generation’s belief in the values of democracy remains incredibly high. It’s just that young people don’t feel that those in authority prioritise them or listen to them.
— Christine Mungai #AfricaIntheWorld2024
Until we address the leadership issue, the tide will continue to go out and take so much of what is not firmly established with it, and then we have to start again as nations. That’s our problem.
— Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede #AfricaIntheWorld2024
The more you listen, the more curious you are, and the more legible and available material becomes.
— Neo Muyanga #AfricaIntheWorld2024
What kind of leaders do we need for the future of Africa? I think, first and foremost, we need empathetic leaders. We need leaders who understand the opportunities and threats and the dramatic changes they can bring.
— Daré Okoudjou #AfricaIntheWorld2024
One cannot think about growing in isolation. If we talk about growth, it’s about collaboration, agreements, and paying attention to other people’s needs, actions, and opinions.
— Karla Gonzalez Carvajal #AfricaIntheWorld2024
I believe that the single silver bullet that will solve 70% of our problems in Africa will be the education of the girl child.
— The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II #AfricaIntheWorld2023

Highlights from the 2024 Festival

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2024 Speakers

Professor Sir Adrian Hill

United Kingdom

Professor Sir Adrian Hill is the Director and Founder of the Jenner Institute and Mittal Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University. In 2014 his group led the first clinical trial of an Ebola virus vaccine targeting the outbreak in West Africa. In […]

Dr Ally Olotu

Tanzania

Dr. Ally Olotu is a Senior Scientist with a strong interest in infectious disease epidemiology and immunology. He is the Director of Science at Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania and a Senior European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) fellow.

Professor Salim S. Abdool Karim

South Africa

Professor Salim S. Abdool Karim is a South African clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist widely recognised for his scientific contributions and leadership in the fields of AIDS and COVID-19. He is the Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of […]

Professor Tulio de Oliveira

South Africa

Prof. Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), played a leading role in the response to COVID-19 in South Africa through his visionary application of genomics and bioinformatics.

Daré Okoudjou

South Africa

Daré Okoudjou is the founder and CEO of Onafriq, previously known as MFS Africa. Onafriq operates the most extensive digital payments network in Africa. Onafriq’s network seamlessly integrates more than 500 million mobile wallets and over 200 million bank accounts […]

Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede

Nigeria

Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede CFR is a distinguished investor, banker, and philanthropist known for his substantial track record in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. As co-founder of the Tengen Family Office, he oversees a multibillion-dollar portfolio spanning banking, finance, insurance, technology, real […]

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