In a bid to foster creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the entertainment industry, the Co-Creation Hub (CcHub), a leading pan-African creative and innovation ecosystem enabler located in Yaba, Lagos, has launched the Creative Economy Practice (CEP) Entertainment Hub in Lagos, offering a unique ecosystem for creatives to connect, collaborate, and thrive.

Launched in partnership with the Gate Foundation, the hub aims to support and elevate storytellers in the entertainment industry, promoting gender equity and challenging stereotypes.

Speaking during the launch, the Managing Director of CcHub, Ojoma Ochai, emphasised the importance of the entertainment media in shaping societal perceptions and the essence of the hub.

She said: “In shaping how we see ourselves as a society, we want to support the people who work in the field to tell stories that will move society forward and promote filmmakers, both men and women.”

Ochai noted that the technology-oriented centre has already trained over 200 people in its entertainment and media hub programs, with a total of 2,500 individuals trained in CcHub’s CEP programs. She expressed hopes to reach more people through effective marketing strategies.

“We welcome all creators who are interested in telling stories to move away from the stereotypes to use the space to move the industry forward,” the CcHub boss added.

She recalled that since 2010, the tech firm has been supporting technology entrepreneurs initially in Lagos, then across Africa. “Eventually we got into incubators, acceleration investment, research and so on. We have since expanded to Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda and Togo. Even though we have offices in five countries, we worked with entrepreneurs across 40 countries on the continent.”

Ochai further said that every year CcHub supports 5000 entrepreneurs with incubators, acceleration and so on.

“Through our programme, in 2010 we invested about $10 million in technology companies. In 2021 we started the creative economy programmes with focus on entrepreneurship; very similar to what I just described – incubation, acceleration investment and others.”

“But for the entertainment and media hub which we are really proud of, we have been supported by the Bill Gates Foundation. The whole of this idea is gender equity storyteller by gender equity story telling we mean stories that move away from stereotypical portrayal of all gender men or women. We want stories where treatment of gender masculinity, femininity and portrayal of core gender. We have today launched following the launch in Kenya last November,” she stated.