Fak'ugesi 2026: African Imaginaries. The signal is live
- Fak'ugesi African Digital & Innovation Festival
The 13th Fak'ugesi African Digital & Innovation Festival announces its 2026 theme, dates and curatorial framework.
The Fak'ugesi African Digital & Innovation Festival today announced African Imaginaries as the curatorial theme for its 13th edition, taking place from 13 to 17 October 2026 across Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ University's Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, Origins Centre and the Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ Anglo American Digital Dome in Johannesburg.
Founded in 2014, the Fak'ugesi African Digital & Innovation Festival brings together artists, designers, technologists, researchers, entrepreneurs and cultural practitioners exploring the future of African digital creativity. In 2025, award applications arrived from 26 African countries, festival attendance doubled, and 7.2 million people were reached through earned media.
The curatorial framework One Signal. Three Frequencies. organises the programme through three curatorial frequencies: Memory Engines, Imagination Engines and Future Engines. Together they carry a single signal, bringing artists, technologists, designers, researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers and cultural practitioners into conversation around how African knowledge is preserved, generated and applied.
Says Festival Director, Alby Michaels: “African Imaginaries is both a declaration and an invitation. It recognises what has always been true: Africa has always imagined beyond its circumstances and created beyond its constraints. Fak’ugesi is the place where those imaginations synchronise, collide and transform into new possibilities for the continent and the world.”
Built around the proposition ‘Imagination Precedes Innovation’, Fak'ugesi 2026 places imagination at the centre of technological and cultural production. Every platform, system and technology begins as an act of imagination. This year's festival asks what becomes possible when African practitioners shape those conditions for themselves.
Across five days, African Imaginaries becomes a live encounter between artists, technologists, designers, researchers and audiences already shaping the continent's digital future through exhibitions, talks, performances, immersive experiences, workshops, awards, game showcases and industry programmes.
Fak’ugesi also launches a new website at fakugesi.co.za today. Designed as an extension of the Festival itself, it brings together the 2026 theme, programme, opportunities and stories in a contemporary digital experience that is as much about exploration as information. As the programme unfolds, the site will become the central platform for announcements, registrations and participation.
Visit fakugesi.co.za to register, explore the programme and follow announcements as Fak'ugesi 2026 unfolds.
Event details
- Dates 13 to 17 October 2026
- Venue Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
- Registration fakugesi.co.za