This year’s Afrotech Fest, we have found our planet and are building a city of the future, a playground of joy and inventing our narratives is just the start…

Last year our youth programme welcomed a wonderful bunch of young inventors, gamers, thinkers and tinkerers who brought Afrotech Fest to life. One of our 10-year-old attendees designed a game that encourages children to eat healthier and 13-year-old Jayla won the grand prize for devising a space that focuses on helping people rest and go dark from technology.

We saw young people build their first computer with KANO, a whole bunch of sensors, synthesisers and interactive dough being smushed everywhere! All thanks to kits from our sponsors Tech Will Save Us. One group reimagined how we wish to live by creating cities of the future using VR and architecture with Bola Lasisi-Agiri and Alisha Fisher.

This year we will be working with N19 stem and a host of other groups to bring you another exciting programme. With a games tournament, cosplay, an unlimited build-your-own kits section and of course, this year you are welcome to attend all talks as well!

We also ran a competition for one young person or group to devise a story for our Afrotech Fest space team, whom some of you might have stickers and posters of already. You’ll see the winning story in a comic that will only be available at the festival - find out what our heroes got up to in April.

We’d love to hear from you and your school about what you’d like to see at the festival and what you’re interested in. Please email youth@afrotechfest.co.uk for more information - we can’t wait to meet you!

What is your constellation? Tweet us your answers!

A FOR THE ARTISTS

This track is for young people who are interested in front-end development, graphic design, designing interfaces or music hacking. If you’ve ever dreamed of designing a killer CSS animation, creating music out of data or character designs to share with your friends, this is the constellation is for you.

B FOR THE BUILDERS

This track is for young people who are interested in our ‘bring along your science/tech project’, where you’ll exchange ideas and interact with other young people’s projects/inventions. And if you get stuck you could always ask for help from the people in your constellation.

C FOR THE COMMUNITY ORGANISERS

This track is for young people who are interested in how technology can impact the world around them. We will look at ideas such as privacy, hacktivism, open source structures, accessibility and learn about some of the big ethical issues of our time. You’ll need a lot of people in this constellation.

D FOR THE DEVELOPERS

This track is for young people interested in back-end development. Here we’ll cover everything from github, Javascript and the command-line, through to creating the architecture needed to make your own game or robot. Any builder or inventor needs extra hands so this is constellation may be for you.

E FOR THE EDUCATORS

Parents, teachers, youth group and social workers are invited to take part and be taught by the young people themselves on how to use the kits, interact with inventions and learn new ways of engaging your students or youth group. You want to change the process? This constellation is no joke!

F FOR THE FORWARD THINKERS

Are you all about the future? In fact are you from the future? You are a tomorrow kind of person who is always thinking about new worlds both real and science fiction. This constellation is out of this world!

V FOR THE VULNERABLE

How lucky we are to have an emotive tech head! Your all about how tech works with us and doesn’t serve us. You design from all signs and you build with no lies. What a constellation!

I FOR THE INSTIGATOR

There is no box for this person. No one colour. They delve into all things and want to work and walk on all paths. We can’t wait to meet you! All of you! What a constellation this will be!

Get your youth tickets today.

The space crew was illustrated by Bimpe Ailliu and the concept was conceived by Xana.