UVU Africa

09/08/2026

To the women building Africa’s future.

Seventy years ago, thousands of women marched to the Union Buildings and changed South Africa’s history. Their legacy echoes far beyond this day and this country, in the women leading, building and creating across Africa today.

They deserve the systems, skills and opportunities to turn that leadership into lasting impact- that’s the work we’re part of.

07/08/2026

✨🎉✨ Meet the jury behind Création Africa South Africa, Lesotho & Malawi. Tasked with selecting this year’s finalists, the panel identified entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industries ready to benefit from expert mentorship and business incubation. ✨🎉✨

07/08/2026

✨ From strengthening business models to building confidence in their vision, the Création Africa Top 50 reflect on the mentorship programme. 🔥


Awawo Africarise Store The Sunday Soirée The One Room Music & Comedy Club KOTG ESports Canvas Academy Seven Interactive Lets Play Outside Lesotho Tribune Dr Pachanga In Your Pocket City Guides Dazzling Kidz SA BKhz Maboneng Arts Wona Collective

07/08/2026

Let Us Help You Host Your Next Event

Our event space provides the ideal setting for you to host conferences, workshops, hackathons, strategic engagements, graduations, and corporate events.

Over the past few months, our venue has hosted a diverse range of events, showcasing the flexibility of the space and the possibilities it creates for meaningful engagement.

With a dedicated support team and modern AV facilities, we are ready to help bring your vision to life, whether you are planning a leadership forum, product launch, networking event or collaborative workshop.

Click the link to explore our event space: https://events.uvuafrica.org/uvuafricaeventspace/

18/07/2026

Building on Madiba's legacy.

Every person we empower is another step towards the future Nelson Mandela envisioned. One where opportunity is accessible, potential is unlocked and no one is left behind.

This Mandela Day, we celebrate the impact of turning African innovation into livelihoods and building a future where more people can thrive.

15/07/2026

Skills alone are not enough. Young people need real demand, the infrastructure to deliver, and the support to turn capability into income.

That's the case our CEO Ziyad Cassim made on Cape Talk's Views and News with Clarence Ford this morning, marking World Youth Skills Day.

Training is an input. Income progression and viable businesses are the outcomes that actually move the needle.

Listen to the full conversation: https://www.primediaplus.com/world-youth-skills-day-2026-is-africa-training-youth-for-local-impact-or-just-creating-cheap-remote-labour/

10/07/2026

03/07/2026

Skills training only becomes a livelihood if it connects to a real job. That's the harder problem, and it's the one we build for.

Last week UVU Africa co-hosted the Cape Town Workforce Readiness Roundtable, with Coursera and Capaciti Tech Career Accelerator, bringing government, industry and education leaders together to talk about closing South Africa's skills gap, not just naming it.

WEF's Future of Jobs 2025 puts reskilling need at roughly 60% of the workforce by 2030. Everyone in the room already knew the scale. What we spent the time on instead was what's actually working: stronger employer-education pipelines, work-integrated learning, and models that get graduates into jobs rather than just certificates.

Thanks to Coursera, MTN South Africa, Wesgro and the City of Cape Town for the honest conversations.

02/07/2026

Africa's creative talent isn't short on brilliance. It's short on infrastructure to turn that brilliance into an industry. That's the argument Capaciti Tech Career Accelerator Talent Executive Kelly Maroon makes in a piece out this week, and it lands harder coming from someone who's a creative herself.

A self-taught animator in Lagos or Nairobi can learn 3D modelling from open tutorials and land international work within months. That's the "low floor." Africa's creative sector is growing at roughly 8.2% a year, well ahead of GDP growth in most markets, and Sub-Saharan Africa's streaming demand is up 23%, the fastest growth rate globally, as platforms like Netflix expand into the continent.
But geographic isolation, linguistic silos, and no scaffolding around IP, financing or cross-border distribution mean that growth isn't consolidating into an industry. It's a collection of brilliant individuals rather than a collective industrial force.

That's exactly the gap UVU Africa is building for in the creative space, connecting African creatives to the infrastructure, markets and capital that turn talent into ownership.

"We don't need to teach creativity. We need to build the scaffolding that surrounds it."

Our own Kelly Maroon, Talent Executive, unpacks what it will take to move Africa's creative sector from fragmented individual excellence to a connected industry that competes globally. Kelly's been working closely with creative talent through Création Africa and our UNDP Independent Animators Capacity Building Programme, so this comes from someone who's inside the work, not observing it from a distance.

Digital design, animation, gaming, film, fashion: the continent has one of the most accessible entry points into a creative career anywhere in the world. But accessibility isn't the same as investability. Kelly's argument is that we need to rethink how we measure creative value, and build the infrastructure, IP ownership, and cross-border production pathways that turn creativity into a high-growth economic vertical, not a nice-to-have.

Read the full piece here: https://iol.co.za/business-report/economy/2026-06-28-building-the-scaffolding-for-africas-creative-economy-to-thrive-to-the-global-stage/

16/06/2026

Fifty years ago, young South Africans changed the course of history. Today is a moment to honour that.

It's also a moment that resonates beyond South Africa's borders, because the question at the heart of Youth Day is one the whole continent is still answering: how do we build economies where young people don't just survive, but fully participate?

Africa has never lacked young people with something to offer. The gap is in the pathways, systems and conditions that let that potential land somewhere real.

That gap doesn't close itself.