Ideas Festival Conference roars into life
MEDIA mogul Trevor Ncube’s inaugural three-day Ideas Festival Conference roars into life today at the Troutbeck Hotel in Nyanga as the private sector seeks a new paradigm for the ailing economy.
Ncube is the owner of Alpha Media Holdings, the private media company that publishes two weeklies, Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard, and a daily, NewsDay. It also owns the online broadcasting company, Heart & Soul.
Ncube’s weekly podcast, In Conversation with Trevor (ICWT), is sponsoring the conference with AMH and Heart & Soul being partners to the event.
“This is an annual get together to share ideas that help build a good society that we aspire to. It will be a non-political and non-partisan gathering to feast on fresh ideas for shaping our collective destiny. Ideas Festival takes ICWT show to a LIVE platform,” part of the concept note for the conference read.
“Nation-building quality conversations, broad-based economic development and prosperity can only be powered by a vibrant marketplace of ideas. Ideas Festival will have idea panels; plenary sessions, Fireside talks; IDEAtanks; masterclasses and musical interludes to give vent to as many voices as possible.”
Some of the notable speakers who are attending the conference are Econet Wireless Zimbabwe chief executive officer (CEO), Douglas Mboweni, Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency CEO Tafadzwa Chinamo, and former Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.
Others include property mogul Ken Sharpe, Marketers Association Zimbabwe president Lillian Mbayiwa, Cimas CEO Vulindlela Ndlovu, Zimbabwe Industrial Hemp Trust founder and chief executive officer Zorodzai Maroveke, among others.
“At the end of the annual gathering, there will be a communique that captures the key outcomes of the deliberations. The idea is to start as many conversations as possible on pertinent issues that have potential to create a good society,” the concept note read.
The conference comes as the economy remains highly volatile amid policy missteps, power cuts, declining credit and production, depreciating Zimdollar, foreign currency shortages, declining infrastructure, and inflation-induced consumer and business wage erosions.
The festival is a follow-up to the Ideas Festival Luncheon held in December 2022, where Ncube announced his intentions to create an immersive platform where innovative entrepreneurial ideas could be exchanged to shape the economy.
AMH launched In Conversations with Trevor in 2019, an in-depth interview-style show in which Ncube sits down with various high-profile guests in a series of candid, hard-hitting conversations.
-newsday
