The pulse of creativity and innovation in Africa doesn’t just beat in a single city, it reverberates across a network of dynamic tech ecosystems and creative hubs. Africa’s innovation story thrives on connection, the exchange of ideas, and that ignites when the continent’s brightest and boldest minds come together.
This final quarter of the year is one of the most exciting times for Africa’s creative and tech scenes with industry-defining events bringing founders, investors, policymakers, and creators under one, or several roofs. The continent is buzzing with opportunities to engage, from strategic financial summits and investor forums to vibrant festivals driving the creative economy forward.
From Nairobi to Lagos, Accra to Johannesburg, these gatherings are more than dates on a calendar, they’re where partnerships are forged, trends are set, and the next wave of growth takes shape.
Whether you’re a founder, policymaker, or investor, attending these events offer a front-row seat to the conversations and collaborations shaping Africa’s digital and economic future.
For a complete overview of events across Africa, visit the events calendar on Labari Insights, our dedicated platform for data and insights.
Nigeria
CX Con 2025 by Cowrywise
- Date: October 10th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
CX Con 2025 is the second edition of Cowrywise’s flagship conference, timed to coincide with Customer Service Week. It brings together Africa’s leading minds in customer experience to reimagine how brands connect with their audiences.
As Nigeria’s leading fintech platform, Cowrywise launched CX Con to spotlight how exceptional customer experience (CX) drives loyalty and growth in competitive markets. It’s a must-attend for business leaders, founders, and product teams focused on building customer-centric products in fast-growing African markets.
Expect practical insights, data-driven discussions, and actionable strategies for scaling through great experience design.
Tech Women Fest
- Date: October 11th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Celebrate the women shaping Africa’s digital destiny! Tech Women Fest, organized by NezaTech Africa, is more than an event; it’s a movement empowering women to shape the future of innovation across the continent.
From founders to engineers to policy advocates, it’s the space to connect, learn, and amplify women’s leadership in tech. Join powerhouses in tech and innovation for an unfiltered day of learning, inspiration, and connection designed to push the boundaries of inclusion and impact.
Moonshot by TechCabal
- Date: October 15th – 16th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Moonshot returns for its third edition in 2025, having already drawn thousands of innovators and ecosystem builders in past years. Organized by TechCabal (part of Big Cabal Media), this flagship conference is designed to connect founders, investors, creators, and policy leaders across Africa’s tech ecosystem.
With nine curated tracks, immersive formats, and deal-making spaces, Moonshot is where bold ideas turn into real partnerships.
- Date: October 16th – 18th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
After its first edition held in Paris in 2023, the leading platform for African creative industries is coming to Lagos for its first edition on African soil. Led by MansA (Maison des Mondes Africains) and backed by AFD, Bpifrance, Business France, and Institut français, the French initiative works to foster dialogue, drive co-production, and establish sustainable partnerships between Africa and Europe.
This event is essential for policymakers, entrepreneurs, artists, cultural leaders, investors, and development professionals working to build innovative and sustainable collaboration across African and European markets.
ABAN Annual Congress
- Date: October 17th – 18th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
ABAN (the African Business Angel Network) was founded in 2015 by six pioneering angel groups and now spans 37 African countries with over 5,000 angels and 75+ member networks.
This year marks ABAN’s 10th anniversary, and the Congress will center on “Accelerating Local Capital Participation. Expect curated strategy labs, live pitch sessions from angel networks and syndicates, and a Gala Awards night honoring early-stage investment champions.
For founders seeking smart, regionally rooted capital, this is a rare opportunity to pitch, learn, and connect with Africa’s leading early-stage backers.
Design Week Lagos 2025
- Date: October 23rd – 28th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Design Week Lagos 2025 (DWL), West Africa’s leading design festival, returns to celebrate the best of African design, culture, and innovation. DWL is widely recognized as a force for raising African design on the global stage.
Founded by Titi Ogufere, DWL transforms Lagos into a sprawling creative canvas with shows in architecture, product design, interiors, and culture, fostering regional design collaboration and global attention.
As a tech or creative professional, this festival is a vital space to engage with the intersection of technology, product design, and cultural aesthetics, providing inspiration and essential connections for UX/UI designers, product teams, and creatives looking to integrate tech into their work.
From product to architecture, DWL 2025 is a feast of creativity that inspires tech founders and creatives alike.
Nigeria Energy
- Date: October 28th – 30th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Now in its 12th edition, Nigeria Energy is widely considered the leading energy platform in West Africa. It brings together policymakers, project developers, utilities, and innovators to showcase sustainable energy solutions, infrastructure models, and cleantech innovations.
With exhibition halls from 200+ organizations and structured conference tracks (Leadership Summit, technical seminars, “Energy-X” contests), it’s where the sector’s future is shaped. If your startup works in climate, renewable energy, or infrastructure tech, this is your chance to align with stakeholders who can scale your vision on the ground.
Lagos Fashion Week
- Date: October 29th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
As one of Africa’s most influential style platforms, Lagos Fashion Week returns to celebrate the creativity, craftsmanship, and culture shaping the continent’s fashion future.
From bold runway presentations to sustainability-focused talks and designer showcases, this year’s edition spotlights innovation, inclusivity, and the growing global influence of African fashion. A must-attend for designers, buyers, media, and style enthusiasts looking to experience where heritage meets contemporary design.
ART X Lagos
- Date: November 6th – 9th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Celebrating its 10th edition, West Africa’s largest contemporary art fair returns to showcase the vibrant and diverse works of African and diaspora artists. Founded in 2016 by Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, ART X Lagos has grown into West Africa’s most influential contemporary art fair.
The fair combines gallery exhibitions, talks, music performances (ART X Live!), film screenings, and special commissions to generate a multidimensional cultural experience.
For creatives, tech leaders, and those active in the creator economy, ART X is a deep dive into Africa’s cultural soft power, tapping into the continent’s cultural zeitgeist, exploring opportunities in the Creator Economy, digital art, and meeting the storytellers who define the continent’s soft power.
Lagos Fringe
- Date: November 18th – 23rd, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Lagos Fringe is a platform for experimental and independent performance arts, born out of the city’s vibrant but often underrepresented creative edges. Though smaller and edgier than mainstream arts events, Fringe events consistently incubate new talent in theatre, multimedia, spoken word, and cross-genre expression.
For innovators, storytellers, and technologists working at the boundaries of narrative and media, Lagos Fringe is a proving ground: a space to spark ideas, test immersive experiences, and meet collaborators outside the conventional circuit.
- Date: November 18th – 23rd, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
This November, Lagos becomes the stage where Africa’s most dynamic storytellers, creators, and cultural pioneers meet. Entertainment Week Africa, the continent’s flagship gathering for the creative economy, returns with a bold mission: to “Close the Gap.”
By connecting talent with capital, and ideas with influence, the week-long event aims to accelerate collaboration and reshape the continent’s creative future. If you’re invested in Africa’s creative future, this is where you need to be.
- Date: November 20th – 22nd, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Organised by the Book Buzz Foundation, Aké’s mission is to promote African creativity through literature, art, and critical dialogue, with its own publication, the Aké Review, amplifying new writing and voices. The theme for 2025, its 13th edition, is “Reclaiming Truth,” a call to confront misinformation, reclaim narrative agency, and champion the integrity of storytelling.
Drawing over 1,000 writers, artists, thinkers, musicians, and storytellers each year, for anyone working at the intersection of culture, tech, narrative, or creative enterprise, Aké offers a rare convergence: where art, thought, and innovation shape how Africa tells its stories and what the world listens to. Expect a rich programme of book chats, panel discussions, poetry, film screenings, performances, and community conversations.
Africa Startup Festival
- Date: November 28th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Recognized as Africa’s top deal-making and networking event, the Africa Startup Festival brings together investors, founders, builders, and operators in one powerful end-of-year gathering.
It’s the definitive platform to explore how emerging technologies are transforming industries and to finalize the partnerships and deals that will define the strategic direction of 2026. In its most recent edition, it drew over 3,000 participants from 15+ countries, founders, investors, and operators converging in Lagos.
Kenya
AfriLabs
- Date: October 13th – 15th, 2025
- Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Organized by AfriLabs, the pan-African network of tech and innovation hubs launched in 2011, the AfriLabs Annual Gathering has grown from a small hub meetup into Africa’s preeminent innovation summit, representing over 500 hubs in 53 countries.
Now entering its 10th edition, this milestone gathering is co-hosted with UNDP’s Timbuktoo initiative in 2025, under the theme “Africa’s Innovation Future: Policy, Partnerships & Progress.”
If you’re shaping ecosystems, building hubs, or scaling startups, this is the forum where insights convert to action and regional networks find momentum. Expect seven deeply curated tracks covering regulation, climate, data, creative economies, inclusion, and hub sustainability. Previous editions have drawn thousands of innovators, ecosystem leaders, and policy makers from across the continent.
Nairobi Film Festival
- Date: October 13th – 15th, 2025
- Location: Nairobi, Kenya
A cornerstone of East Africa’s cultural scene, the Nairobi Film Festival has become a key fixture on the continent’s creative calendar, spotlighting the bold voices shaping African cinema today.
The festival brings together filmmakers, storytellers, and audiences to celebrate thought-provoking narratives and artistic innovation across genres.
With screenings, panel discussions, and networking sessions, it champions local and diaspora talent while positioning Nairobi as a rising hub for film and storytelling excellence in Africa.
Senegal
Big Angels Day Africa
- Date: October 24th, 2025
- Location: Dakar, Senegal
Big Angels Day was established to spotlight angel investing across Francophone Africa and bridge gaps with the broader continental ecosystem. It serves as a dedicated forum where startups from Francophone markets pitch to local and cross-border angels, and investors explore growth opportunities in undercapitalized regions.
In recent editions, the event has been a launchpad for high-value deal flow and collaboration between investors from both Francophone and Anglophone Africa.
If you’re a founder or investor focused on scaling innovation across West and North Africa, attending this day in Dakar is crucial for bridging the Anglophone/Francophone capital divide.
Togo
- Date: October 29th – 30th, 2025
- Location: Lomé, Togo
AfricArena’s regional summits are known for scouting the next generation of tech talent and high-growth ventures. This event in Lomé offers a sharp focus on the emerging startup scene in Togo and the broader Francophone region, making it an excellent stop for investors and partners seeking to discover underserved and high-potential markets.
South Africa
- Date: October 29th – 31st, 2025
- Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Now in its 8th year, AI Expo Africa is the largest business-focused Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and smart tech trade event on the continent.
This is the prime meeting place for enterprises, AI developers, and vendors to discuss real-world adoption of machine learning, making it essential for Deep Tech founders and corporate innovators.
Africa Tech Festival
- Date: November 10th – 13th, 2025
- Location: Cape Town, South Africa
This massive gathering, encompassing both AfricaCom (connectivity and telecoms) and AfricaTech (enterprise technology and digital services), is one of the continent’s most enduring and impactful tech events. It offers a global forum to address challenges and showcase solutions that deliver real-world impact for African businesses and consumers, drawing major players from the telco, media, and digital services sectors.
In its 2024 edition, over 15,000 attendees, 300+ speakers, and 200+ exhibitors converged in Cape Town to explore how technologies like connectivity, AI, and infrastructure are shaping sectors from finance to healthcare. For founders, telco innovators, policy makers, and enterprise leaders, Africa Tech Festival is where continent-scale roadmaps are drawn, partnerships are sealed, and emerging tech trends take off.
Women In Festival
- Date: November 13th – 14th, 2025
- Location: Cape Town, South Africa
The WomenIN Festival is the flagship gathering of the WomenIN (WiN) movement, hosted by VUKA Group. In 2025, the theme is “LIMITLESS: NO LABELS. NO LIMITS. NO APOLOGIES”, a bold call for women to defy conventions, lead with authenticity, and expand what’s possible.
This year’s lineup includes 100+ powerhouse speakers from industries across tech, energy, creativity, policy, and social impact, with immersive masterclasses, a dynamic activation floor spotlighting women-led enterprises, the “Warrior Women Awards,” and co-events like a GBV (gender-based violence) workshop.
For founders, creatives, and changemakers, WomenIN is a platform for building networks, amplifying purpose, and engaging with the conversations that will shape more equitable, inclusive industries across Africa.
Africa Early Stage Investor Summit (AESIS)
- Date: November 27th – 28th, 2025
- Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Co-hosted by the African Business Angels Network (ABAN) and Venture Capital for Africa (VC4A), AESIS is the premier event specifically designed to connect early-stage investors with Africa’s most promising startup founders. This is a high-density, high-impact summit if your goal is to raise or deploy capital in the seed and pre-Series A space.
SuperReturn Africa
- Date: December 2nd – 4th, 2025
- Location: Cape Town, South Africa
SuperReturn Africa is a top-tier private capital event, bringing together leading global and local private equity and venture capital investors. Past editions have generated over 13,000 one-on-one meetings, featured closed-door LP/GP forums, workshops on alternative fund structures, and spotlight sessions on IP & creative sectors.
Recent years have expanded the agenda to include themes like private credit, infrastructure, creative IP, and sustainability to reflect evolving investment priorities in Africa. If you’re monitoring how institutional capital flows into Africa, or aiming to break into the higher-tier investment space, SuperReturn is where strategy, scale, and capital converge.
For General Partners (GPs) looking to secure funding from Limited Partners (LPs), and for founders tracking large-scale investment trends, this gathering offers crucial insights into the future of institutional capital deployment across the continent.
AfricArena Grand Summit
- Date: December 2nd – 3rd, 2025
- Location: Cape Town, South Africa
The climax of AfricArena’s year-long scouting program, the Grand Summit showcases the top startups from across the continent in front of an audience of global investors and corporates. It’s an energetic platform for witnessing pitch competitions and understanding the emerging themes and companies set to dominate the African tech landscape.
Ghana
Accra Cultural Week
- Date: October 30th – November 3rd, 2025
- Location: Accra, Ghana
From its inaugural iteration in 2023, Accra Cultural Week has quickly become a luminary event in Africa’s art calendar. Hosted and curated by Gallery 1957, Ghana’s leading contemporary art gallery and a cornerstone of the city’s dynamic creative ecosystem, the week-long program transforms Accra into a living gallery for all to experience.
For 2025, Gallery 1957 has announced that the celebration will return from 30 October to 3 November, reaffirming Accra’s growing reputation as one of the most exciting creative capitals in the world. Across multiple venues, exhibitions, studio visits, public talks, cultural tours, performances, and pop-up events animate the city, offering an intimate glimpse into Ghana’s thriving contemporary art scene and the global conversations it continues to inspire.
Ghana Digital & Innovation Week (GDIW)
- Date: November 12th – 14th, 2025
- Location: Accra, Ghana
GDIW is a nationwide series of events, jointly led by government, academia, and private sector stakeholders to showcase Ghana’s digital transformation journey and celebrate milestones in Ghana’s Digital Innovation Ecosystem.
It provides a key platform for various actors to learn, share ideas, and create connections that are actively enhancing the national tech landscape and positioning Ghana as a major West African hub.
Started in recent years, GDIW features hackathons, policy roundtables, startup showcases, and sector deep dives (fintech, healthtech, govtech) to foster a cohesive national innovation narrative.
For actors across West Africa, GDIW offers an inside look at how Ghana is positioning itself as a regional tech hub, providing context, connection, and collaboration across innovation segments.
West Africa Dreamin’ 2025
- Date: November 15th, 2025
- Location: Accra, Ghana
West Africa Dreamin’ is the premier community conference for the Salesforce Trailblazer Community. It focuses on how Salesforce tools and platform innovations can be uniquely leveraged in West African contexts.
With developer sessions, administrator tracks, and business use case panels, Dreamin’ fosters peer learning, local community building, and ecosystem momentum for cloud adoption across the region.
For tech professionals working in enterprise software, CRM, and automation, this is a prime opportunity to network and upskill within the Salesforce African community.
Accra Lawtech Hangout 2025
- Date: November 15th, 2025
- Location: Accra, Ghana
The Accra Lawtech Hangout is a networking event dedicated to exploring the intersection of law and technology in Ghana. Hosted by Legaltech Lounge, the annual event brings together lawyers, tech entrepreneurs, investors, and students.
Tech in Ghana
- Date: December 4th – 5th, 2025
- Location: Kumasi, Ghana
This unique edition of the highly respected Tech in Ghana conference shifts focus to the Ashanti Region, spotlighting the growing tech and innovation happening beyond the capital, Accra.
It’s an essential event for connecting with regional tech players, understanding grassroots innovation, and exploring opportunities in secondary cities.
Africa Digital Festival
- Date: December 15th, 2025
- Location: Accra, Ghana
A Pan-African Digital Festival that seeks to unlock Africa’s Digital Future through a series of key discussions and networking opportunities. This end-of-year event offers a broad look at the digital economy, making it a good final stop for a holistic overview of the year’s progress and the outlook for the next.
It convenes thought leaders, creators, policymakers, and investors to review the year’s progress in Africa’s digital space and chart pathways for growth in the year ahead. Expect cross-sector panels, networking breakouts, and thematic sessions (AI, policy, inclusion, infrastructure) weaving together the threads of Africa’s tech story.
Rwanda
Inspire Africa Conference
- Date: October 14th – 17th, 2025
- Location: Kigali, Rwanda
Inspire Africa brings together innovators, investors, and thought leaders across sectors, from climate to digital inclusion, to explore bold solutions for Africa’s future. Past editions have emphasized catalytic ideas and cross-border engagement, placing Kigali at the center of regional momentum in East Africa.
This gathering is ideal for anyone looking to engage with bold, cross-disciplinary agendas and align with the region’s fastest-growing innovation corridors.
MWC Kigali
- Date: October 21st – 23rd, 2025
- Location: Kigali, Rwanda
In partnership with the Ministry of ICT & Innovation in Rwanda, MWC Kigali welcomes industry leaders, innovators, and policymakers to learn how to be part of Africa’s ongoing digital transformation. As part of the globally recognized Mobile World Congress family, MWC Kigali is Africa’s premier connectivity and mobile infrastructure event.
If your work involves mobile technology, connectivity, 5G, or digital policy, this is a must-attend for gathering fresh ideas, qualified business leads, and in-depth knowledge of the East African market.
Africa Blockchain Festival
- Date: November 7th – 9th, 2025
- Location: Kigali, Rwanda
Africa Blockchain Festival has burgeoned into one of the continent’s largest gatherings for crypto, Web3, and blockchain infrastructure. With over 5,000 participants expected, it spotlights deep-dive content on decentralized finance, governance, identity, token economics, and policy.
This festival is the place to meet builders, regulators, and investors shaping Africa’s blockchain-enabled future.
Africa/Week at Norrsken House Kigali
- Date: November 20th – 21st, 2025
- Location: Kigali, Rwanda
Africa/Week is a carefully curated gathering of top builders, investors, thought-leaders, and policymakers focused on unlocking Africa’s next wave of innovation. Hosted at Norrsken House Kigali, East Africa’s largest innovation hub with over 12,000 m² and 1,300+ members, this event is embedded in a space designed for impact, collaboration, and startup growth.
For its second edition, Africa/Week will spotlight hybrid and stress-tested approaches to catalyzing capital for transformative solutions, exploring how capital, collaboration, and intentional design can shape Africa’s next decade.
For founders, investors, ecosystem builders, and change-makers, Africa/Week offers a concentrated, high-impact forum to engage in continent-level dialogue, co-create solutions, and build capital linkages that support Africa’s bold ambitions.
Mauritius
Africa Bitcoin Conference
- Date: December 3rd – 5th, 2025
- Location: Port Louis, Mauritius
The Africa Bitcoin Conference is Africa’s leading event centered on Bitcoin, financial sovereignty, and decentralized monetary innovation. Over recent years it has attracted blockchain developers, protocol teams, fintech founders, and financial inclusion advocates committed to permissionless finance.
If you’re pioneering in the Web3, crypto, or fintech frontiers—and believe in tech that empowers individuals, this conference is a vital nexus of ideas, capital, and community across Africa.
Pan-African
- Date: October 9th – 30th, 2025
- Location: Lagos, Abuja, Accra & Dar es Salaam
From Lagos’s big screens to Accra’s community cinemas and Dar es Salaam’s cultural venues, through The Annual Film Mischief’s programming, each city becomes a hub for discovery, dialogue, and cinematic connection across the continent. For anyone eager to experience African narratives beyond borders, from indie gems to bold experimental work, TAFM offers access to voices, stories, and creators redefining the future of African film.
Returning for its 4th edition, TAFM (organized by The Film Rats Club) has evolved from a niche film showcase into a multi-city celebration of African storytelling, creative wellness, and cross-disciplinary art. This year’s theme, “Reclaiming Self,” invites filmmakers and audiences to explore identity, healing, and authenticity through screenings, wellness sessions, performances, and art exhibits.
