The process began, however, in 2003, with the creation of a land development policy framework, a spatial planning analysis, a feasibility study and a financial model devised to determine possible directions and potential support for the initiative.

While the building planning was being developed, the board appointed a reference group of internationally recognised visual and performance artists, scholars and curators to determine the philosophical goals of the centre.

These meetings gave rise to a series of position papers focusing on the contextual framework, the potential audiences and the content of the Africa Centre, its architectural form and the programs expected to be developed over the next five years.

What emerged from the work of the reference group and the Board was an intention to create an organisation that could innovate, lead, challenge and transcend its geographical reality; to draw in new and wider audiences to novel experiences that recalibrate how we perceive and locate our society and ourselves.

The Africa Centre strives to be a hothouse for avant-garde ideas, sewing original avenues for exchange and debate; a brain trust with the capacity to project manage, partner with other organisations, sponsor, curate and develop an archive of resources.

It wants to be a curious citizen that is committed to social activism and a sustainable future, as well as has the capacity of art and cultural expression to enhance the full range of the human experience.

[4] SPARCK is a Pan-African initiative of experimental multi-disciplinary residencies, workshops, symposia, exhibitions, publications and performances centred on innovative, ethically driven approaches to urban space.

The project involves a number of cities in Africa and beyond: Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Aba, Nigeria; Touba, Senegal; Karachi, Pakistan; Dubai, UAE, and Guangzhou, China.

Despite immense difficulties, not least of which massive infrastructural collapse, urban spaces across the continent are put to use by a wide variety of actors as mechanisms for constructing and renovating economies, cultures and selves.

Through complex intersections of migration, commerce and related diasporic practices, they are emerging with increasing strength as platforms for cosmopolitan, highly prolific engagement by Africans with, through and across the globe.

Each event includes 40–50 experts ranging from cosmologists, economic forecasters, futurists, to sex worker activists and nuclear physicists, a real Wikipedia evening of Africa's thought leaders.

These mini-documentaries are filmed and edited in such a way as to bring to life the information and expertise present from Africa's thought leaders to the broadest pool of people possible.