500 creatives, 8 weeks, 10 sessions, Endless Possibilities

Imagine a class of 500 youth chosen out as the very best African Fashion creatives – surreal, huh.

This was where I found myself. For 8 weeks I joined the Fashionomics Africa Incubator program for young fashion creatives, fronting WARDO TENGO. to vie for the top 3 spots desiring to win US$20,000 towards their business

The competition served 10 class sessions, an assessment, and business evaluation segment, where the 500 were pruned into 25 participants that went on to access the pitch training, and stand a chance to win the prize money.

Overview of the Incubator Program

The program was delivered and facilitated by EyeCity Solutions and Impact Lab, and was intended to follow this order:

  1. Onboarding
  2. Live Classroom Training
  3. Pitch Training for top 25 participants
  4. Mentorship and Coaching for top 12 participants
  5. Live Pitch/Demo Day for top 12 participants
  6. Award Ceremony for top 3 prize winners.

Live Classroom Training Sessions

Alongside the Live Classrooms, we had sessions for discussion and peer-to-peer learning, often after each session on the WhatsApp group that all participants had joined. It was also where we learned more about each other’s business.

The high-points of these sessions were undeniably the diversity of facilitators/speakers convened for the training, particularly of notice was that female entrepreneurs were prominently featured, and all speakers African.

Here’s a quick look at the content of each session:

Module 1. Preparing for field research