Calling all Digital Creatives: Visual Arts and the Culture of Sharing.

With the rise in popularity of various digital platforms, the ease of sharing content online has improved tremendously. Kenya’s internet penetration, fast approaching the 30% threshold, has seen platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp and Youtube, become the most popular in the country. This rise in patronage of digital platforms in Kenya, has availed opportunities for ‘online jobs’ for digital artists, online community managers and creators, especially in the wake of Kenya’s unemployment crisis. 

Beyond promoting entrepreneurship, governments have renewed their focus on the digital economy, as an alternative solution to unemployment with initiatives such as Ajira, spearheaded by the government of Kenya, with the tagline that online work is work. Globally, careers such as Social Media Influencer, Animator, Graphic Designer, Digital Artist, VLogger etc have become more commonplace, when we compare the current labour landscape to merely five years ago. Closer home, research shows that the total size of the online Kenyan gig economy, as at 2019 is $109 million and employing a total of 36,573 gig workers.

Social media has presented the opportunity for the ‘going viral’ phenomenon, where content can be shared instantly across multiple online platforms and within a matter of seconds this content has been viewed across existing geographical, cultural and language demarcations. However, as the ease of sharing content across digital platforms improves, concerns around content ownership and sharing permissions increase. 

The questions arising from this are: 

1. How then are digital content creators protected from 3rd parties replicating and presenting this content as their own? 
2. What are the avenues available to protect and improve monetisation of their creations? 
3. What are the opportunities available for creators to widely share their content with the aim of educating, informing and entertaining wider audiences without the fear of exploitation? 

Is the Kenyan landscape aware of the concerns of digital content creators and keen on preserving their intellectual property in order to foster a more informed culture of sharing?

To answer these and more questions, please join us on 18th October 2019 at the iHub for a conversation centring the Visual Arts and the Culture of Sharing in Kenya from 3pm to 5pm.

To RSVP please follow this link to our eventbrite to ensure you don’t miss a spot! Strictly no tickets will be available at the door.

If you have any questions please reach out to us on research@ihub.co.ke