Pitcher Festival opens registration for 2021 Future Creative Leaders Academy and the Young Professionals Academy

The organizers of the Pitcher Festival have announced the opening of registration for the 2021 youth focused events at the festival. The festival provides two major platforms, the Future Creative Leaders Academy and the Young Professionals Academy to help nurture talented youth to greatness. Each academy has its own intensive training programme, life-changing competitions and usually connects with other partner events to bring participants together with their peers from around the world.

The Future Creative Leaders Academy (FCLA) annually hosts students from several tertiary institutions for seminars, screening and workshops conducted by a faculty of industry experts. The FCLA serves as an early immersion for the students into the competitive world of advertising. The Young Professionals Academy (YPA) offers bespoke learning programmes and competitions for young professionals of up to 30 years working in areas such as advertising, brand management, digital communications, copywriting, art direction and marketing communications in general.

Registration fees for both academies have been slashed by the organizers in consideration of the prevailing pandemic to make it easier for more people to participate. In addition to this, the Festival will extend invites to participating schools and departments to send up to 3 students free of charge. However, this offer will be limited to students participating in the academy for the first time. Once registered into either of the academies, no extra payment is required from participants to access all the available competitions.

All academy attendees will receive the highly valuable certificate of participation from Pitcher Festival. Prizes and awards for the student competitions include the gold, silver and bronze medals for the top performing students. Usually, the lecturers are not left out. The response to the campaign brief is supervised by a lecturer chosen by the school. The lecturer that supervised the best performing student wins the lecturer of the year award.

The participating school or university department with the highest cumulative scores by students representing the school also wins the school of the year cup. Creative, digital or communication schools or university departments anywhere in Africa, who are not already part of the programme may join by sending a request to [email protected].

Here’s what Rashidat Olabisi Jimoh, Mass Communication Student at University of Ilorin said about her experience participating in the 2020 edition of the Future Creative Leaders Academy: “It was an amazing experience. I have been able to learn so much about the industry and I have also learned what it takes to be a creative. The Seminars played a very huge impact. I got to work with other amazing creatives across different universities, and it’s just an amazing feel. I am super proud of myself for being a part of this.”

For Demola Adeoye of Nitro 121 Lagos, “The 2020 YPA was a priceless experience. I am grateful to the organisers and every speaker from the seminars. I gained a wealth of knowledge that I otherwise wouldn’t have anywhere else. I hope to use these learnings to develop myself and also impact the industry, Nigeria and the world at large for better.”

Last year, due to the cancellation of the Cannes Lions Festival as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, competition winners could not compete on a global platform. However, the organizers have assured that all the winners will still have the opportunity to participate this year, even if they have now exceeded the age limit. They added that in due course, Cannes Lions will clarify the modalities for participation in the 2021 events, which may possibly include digital channels as the world continues to battle the Corona virus to make travel safer.

Pitcher Festival has also announced that it will be offering 6 complimentary passes to Cannes Lions to winners of the 2021 Young Pitcher Integrated Competition. This year, the Young Lions Competition will hold in all the 7 categories – Film, Print, Design, Media, Digital, PR and Marketer, while all the other categories are open to young professionals working in agencies and production companies, the Young Lions Marketer Competition is for those working on the client side.

According to Nnamdi Ndu, CEO, CHINI Africa, Cannes Lions Festival representatives in Nigeria and organizers of the Pitcher Festival, “When we say the youth events are at the heart of the Pitcher Festival, we mean it in a very literal sense. Many of the seniors on both the agency and client side have grown with us in the last 14 years since we started the youth programmes. So, it’s exciting and a great privilege once again to be able to engage and contribute to the future of our industry.”

The Creative Leaders Academy and the Young Professionals Academy both started as youth development programmes in Nigeria, but with the Pitcher Festival gaining a Pan-African status, the academies are also now open to participation by students and young professionals from across Africa. All the Pitcher Festival 2021 programmes will be virtual, making it possible for any one to attend from any location.

To visit Pitcher Festival Academies website page click here