ALPHA Media Holdings (AMH) owner Trevor Ncube will host the inaugural three-day Ideas Festival Conference starting on Wednesday meant to come up with vibrant, dynamic and entrepreneurial ideas to improve Zimbabwe’s economy.
This comes as the economy continues to be volatile amid policy missteps, power cuts declining credit and production, depreciating Zimdollar, foreign currency shortages, declining infrastructure, and inflation-induced wage erosion.
The festival is a follow-up to the Ideas Festival Luncheon held in December 2022, where Ncube announced his intention to create an immersive platform where innovative entrepreneurial ideas could be exchanged to shape the economy.
“This is an annual get together to share ideas that help to build a good society that we aspire to. It will be a non-political and non-partisan gathering to feast on fresh ideas for shaping our collective destiny. Ideas Festical takes ICWT [In Conversation with Trevor] show to a LIVE platform,” read part of the concept note for the conference.
“Nation-building quality conversations, broad-based economic development and prosperity can only be powered by a vibrant marketplace of ideas. IF will have idea panels; plenary sessions, fireside talks; IDEAtanks; masterclasses and musical interludes to give vent to as many voices as possible.”
The conference will feature several “idea panels”, discussion forums on specific topics.
These include innovation, leadership, food security, sustainable energy, entrepreneurship, arts and culture, and masterclasses that offer niche training.
Some of the notable speakers who will grace the conference are Econet Wireless Zimbabwe chief executive officer (CEO) Douglas Mboweni, Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency CEO Tafadzwa Chinamo, and former Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.
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Others include property mogul Ken Sharpe, Marketers Association Zimbabwe president Lillian Mbayiwa, Cimas CEO Vulindlela Ndlovu and Zimbabwe Industrial Hemp Trust founder and chief executive officer Zorodzai Maroveke, among others.
The conference will be held at the Troutbeck Hotel in Nyanga.
“At the end of the annual gathering, there will be a communiqué that captures the key outcomes of the deliberations. The idea is to start as many conversations as possible on pertinent issues that have potential to create a good society,” read the concept note.
AMH is a media company that publishes two weeklies, Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard, and a daily, NewsDay.
It also owns the online broadcasting company, Heart & Soul.
Ncube’s weekly podcast, In Conversation with Trevor is sponsoring the conference, with AMH and Heart & Soul being partners to the event.
AMH launched In Conversations with Trevor in 2019, an in-depth interview-style show in which Ncube sits down with various high-profile guests in a series of candid, hard-hitting conversations.
Since its debut, the show has over 51 000 subscribers and approximately 7 760 627 views, as of Saturday, on YouTube, as well as 6 400 and nearly 7 000 followers on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), respectively.
