Africa in the World

October 21-24, 2026

Stellenbosch, South Africa

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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

2026 Speakers

Lord Ara Darzi

Lord Ara Darzi of Denham is Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London and holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery. Named in TIME100 Health 2025, he is an internationally recognised academic, surgeon, and leader […]

Joe Studwell

Joe Studwell worked as a journalist and author in east Asia for 25 years. He was the founding editor of the China Economic Quarterly and co-founder of the Asian research firm Dragonomics, now GaveKal Dragonomics. Joe is the author of […]

Wawira Njiru

Wawira Njiru is a social innovator and enterprise leader who has spent more than a decade structuring, financing, and operating large-scale public food systems. As the founder and CEO of Food4Education, she is redefining how governments, investors, and philanthropists invest […]

Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu

Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu is the 15th Governor of Lagos State, Nigeria. He began his career in the private sector, spending more than a decade in banking before moving into public service. His public-service record includes helping establish the Lagos State […]

Jad Abumrad

Jad Abumrad is a composer, artist, and journalist. He is the creator of Radiolab, Dolly Parton’s America, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, and many other podcasts, which collectively have been downloaded over a billion times. He has been called a […]

Jamal Eltaeb

Dr. Jamal Eltaeb is an orthopaedic surgeon, head of traumatology, and General Director of Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, Sudan. Amid Sudan’s devastating civil war and the near-total collapse of the country’s health system, Dr. Eltaeb has kept Al Nao […]

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2025 Festival Highlights

When we are radically inclusive, intentionally committing to bringing everyone around the table, we are always better off.
— David Moinina Sengeh #AfricaIntheWorld2025
In these societies, with the history of violence, we are challenged to constantly be thinking about: How do you relate to one another?
— Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela #AfricaIntheWorld2025
The more you listen, the more curious you are, and the more legible and available material becomes.
— Neo Muyanga #AfricaIntheWorld2024
Be open to things that appear in the cracks — things at the edges of improvisations, new ideas, which are small ideas at the side that can take over.
— William Kentridge #AfricaIntheWorld2025
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
We came from a generation of artists who were really interested in this idea of shifting art from a question of commodity into a gift.
— Ibrahim Mahama #AfricaIntheWorld2025
The mistake we make in Africa often is that we see independence as the cure, when really, I would say it’s a misdiagnosis… independence was the breaking of the fever.
— Mohamed Ali Diini #AfricaIntheWorld2025
We live in a world without burning bushes, but the forests are on fire.
— Alan Storey #AfricaIntheWorld2024
I fervently believe that we’ve got an amazingly good constitution. It speaks to the past and to the future. It speaks to rights and obligations. But it’s observed in the breach.
— Trevor Manuel #AfricaIntheWorld2025
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 #AfricaIntheWorld2019
This is not to say we should disregard these technologies, but that we should be focused on how we make them work for 8 billion people rather than eight billionaires.
— Alix Dunn #AfricaIntheWorld2024
If you cannot identify your stakeholders and map where you have influence and power to shift dynamics in a society, then frankly, you’re wasting your time.
— Jumoke Oduwole #AfricaIntheWorld2025
We will make more progress by working to tackle common problems than fighting a common enemy.
— Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka #AfricaIntheWorld2023
We may dislike politicians, but they shape our lives, and they set the ceiling of what can be.
— Dare Okoudjou #AfricaIntheWorld2025
This is what we need to come to realise: that my story today could be your story tomorrow, my pain today could be your pain tomorrow.
— Hope Azeda #AfricaIntheWorld2023
Our project is to become more human and more humane. That work never ends.
— Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana #AfricaIntheWorld2023
Luckily, we do not live in the West, but in this far-off province of grief and sunlight, where we still have enough ancestral knowledge to know you must weep collectively in choirs.
— Dominique Botha #AfricaIntheWorld2025

Highlights from the 2025 Festival

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