Idris Elba is teaming up with Google to empower African creators.
Bloomberg reports that the two parties have partnered to invest nearly $1 million in AI tools, including the Gemini AI assistant, which will be available to nearly 100,000 creators in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Sierra Leone.
“We think about all those creatives who don’t have access to these enormous studio budgets,” Google Senior Vice President for Research and Technology James Manyika explained, according to Bloomberg. “AI is potentially a tool that can enable them to do work that they couldn’t otherwise do because they don’t have huge budgets.”
Elba added:
“The barrier is not a lack of vision — it’s a lack of access. Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not.”
Elba’s efforts won’t stop there. He also intends to launch a film studio in Zanzibar, Tanzania, described by Zanzibar’s Investment Minister, Shariff Ali Sharif, as being on par with “Hollywood, Nollywood, or Bollywood,” as AFROTECH™ previously reported.
“If successful, the project will help not only Tanzania but also Eastern and Central Africa,” said a spokesperson for Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan at the time of the announcement in 2024, per the BBC.
In addition to the studio, Elba is also building a creative village in Ghana to ensure that culturally competent content is available on global streaming platforms, Bloomberg reported.
“Being from the creative sector and working across Africa, I see the real bottlenecks that can be alleviated with technical, financial solutions. The creative economy is often overlooked, but it can be a major economic driver,” Elba told OkayAfrica.
All in all, Elba describes his efforts across Africa as “multi-layered.”
“I’ve been working on this jigsaw for years. It isn’t just building studios or creating education programs. It’s about creating an environment that allows creativity to happen. So I’m interested in how we can change that,” he explained, according to Okay Africa.
