Experts advocate partnership, tech to drive content growth, sustainability

Experts have implored social media influencers, content creators, and news outlets to collaborate with other external parties and adopt technology to drive growth in global reach and visibility.

The experts made this call at the 2023 AfricaNXT summit in Lagos state. The theme of the summit is titled “The transformative potential of collaboration: leveraging technology, content, and partnerships for sustainability.”

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Africa Next summit in collaboration with The Guardian.

Africa Next summit in collaboration with The Guardian.

Africa Next summit in collaboration with The Guardian.

Africa Next summit in collaboration with The Guardian.

The summit hosted by Africa Next in collaboration with The Guardian focused on the transformative potential of partnerships between different entities for achieving sustainable development.

Africa Next summit in collaboration with The Guardian.

Co-founder of the Ladies Sports Conference, Tega Onojaife, stated that partnership is the primary vehicle for achieving sustainable development goals and noted that working with other specialists helps deliver and achieve a better project by reaching more people than would have been possible alone.

According to the CEO of Collective Media Services, Yinka Obebe, collaboration and partnership are critical to the sustainability of a project and added that collaborating with an external organization does not preclude an individual or organization from performing but rather assists in achieving a sustainable goal and recognising a person’s or organisation’s lack of strength, size, or ability to pull certain things.

“Speaking of the importance of collaboration and partnership, I think those two things are everything. It’s usually because you’re not strong enough, big enough, or capable of pulling certain things. That doesn’t mean you aren’t all of those things. It just means that you have identified areas in which your strengths can help other people and where some other people’s strengths can help your weaknesses,” Obebe said.

Africa Next summit in collaboration with The Guardian.

“The reason why people don’t collaborate is that sometimes they feel they are up to it, and they don’t want to share the idea behind it. If you have an idea, you should share it first because the idea gets better and becomes bigger for everybody. So we’re very selfish, and we can be very greedy sometimes.

“So, finally, there is integrity. A lot of people come to partners because they feel they want something from the other person. You shouldn’t be partnering because you’re getting something from the next person; you should be partnering because you’re providing value. It should be very clear. You should never partner with someone if you’re not clear about the value you’re bringing to the table. You’re partnering because you want free money. No, you’re going to be embarrassed at the end of the day.”

In response to questions about the legal ramifications of collaboration, an attorney, Akinyemi Ayinoluwa, said that the most crucial action to take is to be aware of the laws and regulations of the country in question.

Ayinoluwa said, “First things first, whatever you’re trying to do has to be on the right side of the law. So that means you can’t collaborate or do anything to offend the codified rules and regulations of the society where you operate, so you have to be mindful of that,

“At all times, if you’re going into collaboration with anybody, the first thing you should think is, “Am I going to be offending any laws?” “Is there anything that will affect my immediate community negatively?” Also, “Is this something I want to associate with my brand?” These are not clear-cut offenses, but again, they might not do justice to what you represent. So going into any kind of relationship, you have to be mindful of that.”

Africa Next summit in collaboration with The Guardian.

He noted that before jumping on the bandwagon of partnership with any individual or organization, effort should be put into considering the values and damages that might likely emerge from the partnership.

Meanwhile, the co-founder of Adenian Labs, Killian Mayua, highlighted the use of technology during collaboration and stated that technology is crucial prior to and during the startup of an idea or innovation and partnership, adding that technology has made collaboration simpler and dissuaded idea theft, notably with digital content like timestamps and blockchain.