Pan-African magazine, Ogojiii launches at WEF Africa

This new high-end, print magazine appeals to an intelligent, globally minded Afropolitan and cosmopolitan readership that have the power to contribute to change. It offers cutting-edge perspectives on design, African and global affairs.

It will initially launch in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa and is published every 42nd day, following the Akan calendar. Ogoji in the Yoruba language means 40 and the two ii are Roman numerals to complete the numbers.

The magazine is design-centric in its approach to reporting and presenting solutions. It recognises that smart design drives shifting trends and changes livelihoods, business and industries. Today, 50% of global output and 75% of global growth streams from emerging economies and new transformative innovation in the South drives growth in the North.

This view is shared by the team of African investors, who decided to join the project and help put together an editorial team able to piece together design-centric reporting from across the African continent.

African investors, Scandinavian design

The project is the brainchild of Jens Martin Skibsted, an internationally-acclaimed Danish designer and design philosopher, who, with a team of African investors, decided to create the magazine and put together an editorial team able to piece together design-centric and solution-based reporting from across the African continent.

"With a population and middle class that will radically increase within the next decades, the African continent is set for a surge in consumerism, fuelled by substantial economic growth," says Skibsted. "This growth will be accompanied by smart, sustainable and frugal design solutions that drive innovation and the future of our planet as such."

"Ogojiii is the magazine that will capture the zest and depth of these drivers of innovation and provide our readership with a platform to enjoy African ingenuity, spur on design-led ideas and acquire new global perspectives."

Edited by Gary Cotterell, the long-time editor of Business Day's Wanted magazine, this Pan-African magazine is run from offices in Nairobi and Johannesburg by a world-class team. These including Zana Woods, the photo editor from Wired magazine in San Francisco; Toby Shapshak, the editor and publisher of Stuff magazine; and Daniel Ford, the launch editor of GQ South Africa. Its business manager is Sally Hudson, who has managed Elle, Elle Decoration, Longevity and Stuff.

"The team and its network of contributors present an alternative view - a clear vision that is contrary to the distorted global take on African affairs," says Cotterell. "We offer ideas and perspectives on this continent on the move and we tell the stories of the individuals at home and abroad who drive Africa forward through design, innovation and sustainability. Africans are makers and doers and have been since mankind first walked erect. And we did that first."