Animation West Africa Foundation is something I have been working on for a while, jin and around 2007 I was working as a 3d artist/animator in Capetown South Africa, my director then Stuart Forrest the owner of Triggerfish Animation Studios had set up ASA (Animation South Africa) which I was and still a member, he saw the desire in me to create something similar for the industry I actually belonged to - the very silent West Africa CG industry - our working relationship was more of a friend to friend basis even though it was also an employer to staff one. (I started as an intern)
I must mention that Stuart was quite supportive and helped me finally decide a direction for my passion and desire to see the local CG industry of West Africa grow out of the mediocre (in terms of knowledge base plus standardized skills) and non-profitable one that it is towards the direction of one which attracts the global interest, stakeholders and a destination for not cheap but affordable and reliable manpower with Africa as a whole.
As I lived my day to to life, I would receive so many emails from people I do not know and never met before asking me for directions, suggestions, advice and questions about the 3d animation, CG and about the local industry in South Africa, this got me thinking about what I consider a wealth of CG practitioners with countries like Nigeria, Ghana etc yet it is clear that those who understand the name of the game know that for the type of quality training, exposure, development and in some cases CG services they require it is better to look outside of this region and move towards the Southern African region and that is if they will chose to stay within Africa in order to get good quality product and animated services... why should that be so? I wondered.
The few Nigerians I met or met me in Capetown have shown extra ordinary skills and ability to improve their skills within a short time, they have taken their careers more serious compared to their South African counterparts (my opinion here though, nothing prejudicial intended), this shows to me that with the right resources, investment and improvements of the local industry in West Africa, the story can change within a short time with concentrated efforts, for instance Nollywood the third largest movie industry behind Hollywood and Bollywood would then be able to boast of not just quantity in film production but quality aswell... thinking about it really, there are so many other industries and jobs to be created if the CG industry will improve its standards and presence within West Africa and for this reason and other future prospects, I have decided to set up AWA - Animation West Africa Foundation, the 'foundation' in the name suggests that it would pursue community development as a charitable incorporated entity.
Pls stay on this page for constant updating and declaration of purpose behind AWA Foundation.
Cheers
Hello there,
Welcome here once again and thanks for staying on the journey with Animation West Africa Foundation, the intentions and ideas are indeed potentially good but as usual any idea need the factors of People, Resources and Timeliness in order to make them come fully achieved.
At the moment AWA has successfully set itself up alongside players in the global CG industry who are willing to support us through the process in part of in whole.
Recently we had our very first AWA Hard Surface modelling challenge and we were very excited when Digital Tutors agreed to sponsor our first and subsequent editions of the challenge.
Although we did not have as much participation as expected (being the first I suppose), the worthy participants were treated to a full free subscription by Digital Tutors http://www.digitaltutors.com/, PixelCoprs has been a great support too offering every African member coming via AWA a free standard membership to their forum where you can benefit from live streaming sessions, interactivity and be able to meet particular people in the wider CG industry http://www.pixelcorps.com/
This first CG challenge was in 2011, we are now in 2012 and already thinking of a second CG is themed 'Tell A Tale'' a 2d and 3d interpretation of the same still shot challenge, however this time we are taking it a notch further with judges panel up to 5 in number, veterans from various award winning studios from the US, Canada etc. We are hopeful to be able to get more sponsors for the rewards aswell and this is a work in progress.
At the moment, a fully functioning website/web portal is being handled by the web team set up for this purpose, however I will say more on this in another update.
These are just a bit of what AWA is up at the moment but still a wide gap from the ultimate destination, and for us to get to the destination the 3 factors mentioned earlier on will matter a lot. The People factor will determine who runs with the idea, how it is run with and how much the ideas and vision is accomplished, while the Resources factor can mean that the people factor are willing and able to utilise any given resource, offer and provide resource in order to achieve the direction of the idea, all of these must be done with some level of Timeliness, not just the right product from the right source through the right channel to the right user but all of these must be done at the right time.
There can be a wealth of resources and people plus information but these can lead to a quagmire of potentially useful feedbacks however if they are not timely, they can be as useless as when they do not exist at all.
Why not decide to contribute your support in any way possible to help build a great future for the West Africa CG industry where people will be able to sustain themselves from what they love to do and many more younger one will be able to see a future in Computer Graphics and setting themselves up to succeed in it as a career path.
Please check out the donation and support page.
Cheers.
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