In service of our vision to have Africans telling Africa’s story, over the past half decade we have developed training programmes that help to bridge the digital divide for African media and heritage professionals. In doing this we have formed significant partnerships with trainers who are on the cutting edge of developments in the digital world internationally. The training programmes that have emerged out of these partnerships have proved amazingly successful and have certainly inspired us to keep innovating in this area.
The Digital Campus
Our anchor week-long training programme, the Digital Campus has been run once a year over the past five years in Cape Town, Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal and has helped hundreds of media and heritage professionals effectively get to grips with the digital world, digital imaging and digital workflow. The programme has broad appeal while at the same time we have been able to focus attention of the needs of specific sectors. In 2009, for instance, we ran the Heritage Digital Campus focused on the heritage sector.
Above: Peter Krogh, author of The DAM Book and UK-based digital imaging consultant, Graeme Cookson, teaching during Africa Media Online’s Digital Campus.
African Media Entrepreneur Programme (AMEP)
Originally run in 2008 as the African Photo Entrepreneur Programme (APEP), the AMEP is being developed as a next generation media training programme. The name is expressive of what we aim to achieve. “Media” has replaced “Photo” in recognition of the increasing media convergence and that in order to tell Africa’s story effectively to the new generation, skills are needed in multiple media. Although rooted in photography, this is very definitely a multiple media programme. “Entrepreneur” expresses both the desperate need for an entrepreneurial spirit and for entrepreneurial skills in the media sector.
Above: images from Africa Media Online’s 2008 African Photo Entrepreneur Programme (APEP).
Training Programmes for 2011 will be announced in due course on our various blogs: