Creative Futures Africa is a platform that champions Africa’s creative economy as a driver of opportunity, cultural expression and inclusive growth. For Design Week in Johannesburg, Creative Futures Africa is stepping off the Summit stage and into the creative community.

The 2026 Creative Futures Africa Summit brought together voices from the creative economy, finance, technology, policy, climate and city-making to ask how creativity can drive Africa’s next chapter.

This Design Week conversation brings the Summit’s key insights and provocations straight to the people doing the work. Come test the ideas and add your own perspective to what comes next.

If you are a creative practitioner building Africa’s creative economy, or back them, then this is for you. The gathering is about widening the conversation and making sure the people building the sector have a hand in defining its future.

Expect a frank conversation on:

• Funding creative work
• The intermediaries who hold creative ecosystems together
• New technology
• Creative cities
• Who owns the data