The annual YouthConnekt Africa Summit is YCA flagship event, gathering thousands of youth leaders, entrepreneurs, private sector players, and development partners to foster meaningful exchanges and to spotlight the talent, innovation, and youth-led solutions driving Africa’s transformation.
To uphold the high quality and relevance of our discussions and ensure a diverse range of voices, the YCA team employs a comprehensive approach to speaker identification and selection. This process is designed to ensure transparency, inclusivity, and the highest caliber of contributions aligned with the Summit’s thematic priorities.
1. Identification through YouthConnekt Country Chapters
In collaboration with YouthConnekt Country Chapters, potential speakers are identified and proposed by each country based on the summit’s thematic areas, whether to position themselves, advocate for issues relevant to them, or promote national initiatives.
2. Identification through YouthConnekt Partners
As an ecosystem enabler, YCA works with partners across sectors who contribute to youth development on the continent. These partners support identifying subject-matter experts and outstanding young people from their networks to contribute as speakers.
3. Identification through the Summit Host Country
Led by the host Government, the summit organization process also includes identifying speakers who represent national priorities, government perspectives, and showcase local innovations and success stories aligned with the summit agenda.
4. Open Call to speak at the YCA Summit
The open call is designed to ensure an inclusive process and broad access to some of the most impactful speakers across the continent. YCA would launch a call for expressions of interest from youth-led organizations to host sessions during the summit (maybe not for the upcoming summit though), an approach that provides a meaningful avenue for identifying strong youth speakers.
Furthermore, YCA is eager to broaden this process by launching a call for expressions of interest from individual speakers (this approach would be suitable starting with the upcoming summit). A limited number (exact number should be determined) of potential speakers are to be identified for contributing as speakers.
For every approach, the pool of suggested speakers undergoes a selection process to identify and confirm the most relevant profiles, based on the specific objectives and perspective of each session. These are in addition to high-level personalities, policymakers, leaders of regional partner institutions, renowned artists, and influencers.
