Team NiCADEMIA
BY: Theresa Igata
Winner of the Universal Service Provision Fund’s, USPF, change maker Challenge 2017, NICADEMIA has added a feather to its cap with the launch of its video on demand platform and mobile app which it says is targeted at meeting 100 million kids in the next 5 years while looking to win the war against African language extinction.
With its latest animation cartoon, Mudi goes to school currently running on terrestrial TV across Nigeria and the DSTV the NICADEMIA team is optimistic that with African animation we can get our language back when parents begin to encourage kids to watch our animations.
Speaking at the official launch of the video on demand platform and mobile app, the CEO, NICADEMIA, Valentine Ubalua believes that culture and language loss is a global crisis and there’s the need for government to encourage those who have carved a niche in the area of innovation and creativity.
“With this mobile app and our on demand platform we’re creating streams of income for African animators and to promote our culture. They produce the contents and we have to make sure we help them make some money, though we’re short of animators in Africa, which is why we’re currently working with the government to have animation added as course in tertiary institutions so that youths can be trained in that regard”.
Valentine expressed his displeasure at the level Africa currently occupies in the global animation market. According to him, the animation market is valued at over $500 billion but Africa has less than 1 per cent of this revenue stream. ” But our target is for Africa to at least own 30 per cent and one of such ways is for the government and private sector to invest in this industry and with this we’ll take Africa animation to the next level because we believe this is the new oil. ”
He however added that with 2,000 active subscribers to its platform and 2 million kids currently watching its content on TV in 10 different Nigerian languages, NICADEMIA aims to increase the number of languages to 1000 in the next 5 years to include languages from other African countries.
