South African innovation hub, the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct has strengthened its international ties by signing official partnership agreements respectively with the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) on May, the 16th and the French Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM) on May, the 24th.
The partnerships will allow Tshimologong and its incubation platform for African digital creatives, the Digital Content Hub, to foster meaningful connections between the French market and the South African creative digital ecosystem. As the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Digital Content Hub was born out of a collaboration between Tshimologong and the French Embassy in South Africa in the frame of its ongoing support towards cultural and creative industries. It plans to host academic programmes, labs, workshops, exchange of expertise, collaborative workspaces, a development studio, exhibitions and special events from the creative industries in collaboration with INA and SACEM.
Lesley Williams, CEO of Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct and Director of the Digital Content Hub says that ties with prestigious organisations like INA and SACEM present an exciting opportunity for African digital innovation to reach a broader global market: “We’re delighted to be able to propel entrepreneurship and grow the skills pipeline for the digital economy through collaboration while combining technology innovation and creative content.”
Collaboration with Ina: Training, Event & Cultural Engineering
After a successful Hackathon and content production around new archive collections in 2018 (Rivonia Trial Sound Jam), INA and Tshimologong will continue their ongoing partnership by focusing in immersive content training by sharing expertise on web series, VR, AR, binaural sound, and digital music. INA and Tshimologong will also pursue efforts in the production and distribution of content using archives.
“INA has built successful partnerships with the South African Republic in regard to archives preservation and professional trainings. INA is now thrilled to sign an agreement with Tshimologong Precinct, an ambitious incubator guided by objectives”, says Laurent Vallet, CEO of INA.
INA also shares: supporting talents and fostering the emergence of new forms of innovative digital content.
Collaboration with Sacem: Music Intellectual Property
The agreement between SACEM and Tshimologong is a result of SACEM Université’s support of Digital Lab Africa. SACEM Université is a department of SACEM dedicated to prospective on the one hand, and pedagogy for intellectual property and culture on the other hand.
Among areas of cooperation, Tshimologong and SACEM will pursue training courses, seminars and workshop opportunities with a focus on authors’ rights issues, management of intellectual property, rights in the digital era, together with new business models. This upcoming collaboration is a great opportunity to launch programs which support emerging talent in the music field.
Jean-Noël Tronc, CEO of SACEM says that for many years, Africa, as a continent, has enlightened the world with immense creative talents whose music is at the core of most of today’s music and rhythms: “SACEM, with thousands of its composers and songwriters having cultural bonds with Africa, is committed to contributing to and promoting the creation and authors’ rights in Africa. Hence SACEM works closely with its African sister societies.”
“We are thrilled by the perspectives of the cooperation with the Digital Content Hub of Tshimologong to reinforce authors’ rights and copyright, and the virtues of collective management in Africa,” says Tronc.
About Tshimologong Precinct
The Tshimologong Precinct, founded by Wits University is a true “Silicon Valley” in Johannesburg that aims to realise African digital innovation for global markets. Its ecosystem propels entrepreneurship and grows the skills pipeline for the digital economy through collaboration with academia, corporates, government and entrepreneurs.
Driven by common goals, including the desire to combine technology, innovation and creative content, Tshimologong and the French Embassy in South Africa have joined forces to create a Digital Content Hub – DCH – and integrate and sustain the existing Digital Lab Africa Programme – the first support programming for the production of digital content across sub-Saharan Africa initiated in 2016 by the French Embassy in South Africa. The DCH is the first project from cultural industries in Africa to have obtained funding from the Agence française de développement (AFD) since the extension of their mandate to these sectors. The project obtained a grant of 950,000 euros over 3 years.
About Agence Française de Développement (AFD)
The Agence Française de Développement (AFD) funds, supports and accelerates the transitions to a fairer and more sustainable world. Focusing on climate, biodiversity, peace, education, urban development, health and governance, AFD carry out more than 4,000 projects in France’s overseas departments and territories and other 115 countries. In this way, AFD contributes to the commitment of France and French people to support the sustainable development goals.
About INA
The French national audiovisual institute (INA) is a public digital audio-visual company founded in 1975. It collects, conserves and distributes French audio and video heritage. The Ina’s innovative user-oriented approach optimises the distribution of its content, which it shares as widely as possible: through ina.fr for the general public, inamediapro.com for professionals and the Ina THÈQUE for researchers. Having produced more than 2,400 documentaries and programmes in 40 years, the Ina has acquired unique experience and skills in the construction of accounts and the visual treatment of archives.
The Ina also uses its expert excellence and capacity for innovation to assist foreign institutions, such as South Africa’s National Archives, which are keen to carry out the digitisation and long-term conservation of their audio-visual heritage.
The Institut is also one of the leading centres of initial and ongoing training in audio-visual and new-media skills, and has a solid reputation as both a research and experimentation laboratory, and a media observer.
About SACEM
The Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM) aims to represent and defend its members’ interests in view of promoting musical creation in all its forms (from contemporary music to jazz, rap, hip-hop, French chanson, film music, music for video, etc.) along with other repertoires (humour, poetry, dubbing-subtitling, etc.).
Its key mission is to collect royalties and distribute them to authors, composers and publishers whose works are disseminated or reproduced. A private organisation, SACEM is a non-profit entity managed by creators and publishers of music elected to its Board of Directors. It has 164,840 members, including 20,012 creators from outside France (3,830 new members in 2017) and represents over 121 million works from the global repertoire. From music venues to streaming platforms through audiovisual media and bars, SACEM is close to 500,000 highly diverse clients. In 2017, SACEM distributed royalties to 300,000 authors, composers and publishers worldwide for more than 2.4 million works.