The just-concluded Global Creative Festival (GCF 24) convened over 400 of the brightest minds in the creativity and technology world on November 30 at The Dolapo Obat Gallery in Abuja and December 7 at The Jewel Aeida in Lagos. Hosted by Designer Babe®, the festival transformed these cities into epicentres of innovation, connecting African talent to global opportunities and shaping the future of creative technology globally.
Founded by Mitch Chibundu, also known professionally as Designer Babe (DB), the GCF and DB events are avenues for creatives in tech to connect with a wider community and build solutions tailored for their environment. According to Mitch,“Not everyone will japa” What this means is that people have to figure out how to thrive within their current realities, regardless of whether they’re going to relocate or not.”
Designer Babe is focused on making resources available to creatives in tech and helping them deliver practical results wherever they are. With a passion for sharing knowledge and a belief that everyone is teachable, Mitch has impacted people who have gone on to help others.
In this conversation with TechCabal, she talks about the power of community in transforming lives, DB’s work in helping creatives, and what the future holds for DB and the GCF.
TC: What inspired you to start Designer Babe and the Global Creative Festival?
DB: Three years into my career, I noticed that there were a lot of people making education accessible online in many fields like software engineering, product management, etc., but as a growing designer working at Flutterwave at the time, I didn’t see anyone do that for designers. I was learning about different design principles and was inspired to put what I learned on Instagram. That is essentially how Designer Babe started. It has grown into something more significant, but education is still at the core of it all.
Designer Babe is about helping people own their journey and understand that they can build fulfilling lives and careers. The GCF also came from that mission to help people learn and become better at whatever they do. However, it didn’t start as the GCF. It started as something we used to call “Wine and Design”.
A brief history of the Global Creative Festival…
“Wine and Design” first started online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I realised that the Designer Babe community had grown, and I wanted to connect more with that community. When we did it online, we hosted designers from Netflix, Invision, and Flutterwave, who joined our online community to discuss design, drink wine, and enjoy ourselves. But then, like anything you stay consistent at, it started to grow, and it became something we had to come together for in person.
So, in July 2022, we hosted our first in-person event with over 150 people in Lagos. In December 2023, we had a grander repeat in London, and in April 2024, we held an AI showcase in London. Since its inception, we have hosted nearly 1,000 attendees across multiple cities. Our partnerships with brands like Send by Flutterwave, Selar, Leadway Assurance, and wine brands like London Manya and Bella Bellina have amplified our reach and delivered transformative results for creatives and collaborators alike.
Over time, we’ve rebranded into the Global Creative Festival to reflect a broader mission to connect, educate, and inspire creatives across continents. This rebrand speaks to all audiences instead of being “Wine and Design”, where we had many questions about whether it was for only people who liked wine or designers. Anyone who sees the Global Creative Festival can say, “I’m a global person, I’m a creative person, or I love festivals, and I’m going to be there.”
It’s fundamentally bringing people together to connect, learn, grow, and build lasting relationships.
TC: Is there still wine?
Designer Babe: Of course! There will always be wine.
TC: What is it about knowledge sharing that intrigues you?
Designer Babe: I love teaching, and that’s all there is. My mother was a teacher, and I grew up spending a lot of time with her and paying attention to her, preparing curriculums and grading papers. However, I never thought I would be a teacher myself. I used to say I would never be a teacher because I could see how much work my mom put into growing people. I started out just wanting to share knowledge and connect, and it shaped me into the kind of educator I am today. Because I taught from a place of learning and not expertise, I approach teaching with empathy, curiosity, and a beginner’s mindset. I wanted to learn, and as soon as I did, I knew how that knowledge could impact the next person. This helped me grow solid professional skills and made me the expert I am today.
Fundamentally, I want people to know better. Knowledge is edifying. When someone learns something new, their eyes light up, so imagine doing that at a scale like the GCF.
TC: I’d like to know some other ways Designer Babe contributes to the growth of the creative ecosystem besides the GCF. Are there other things you do, particularly in Africa?
Designer Babe: So the real question is, what is Designer Babe not doing? (Laughs)
We do everything. I wrote my first book, “Clueless to Designer: A Beginner’s Guide to Product Design,” in 2020, and it has changed my life and the lives of the people who read it. We’ve sold over 5,000 copies of the book and have first-hand stories from real people who have started their design careers because of it.
Our contributions go beyond the festival itself, and our initiatives have created ripple effects across the creative community. For example, when we made the first one million Naira from the book, I used the money to buy laptops and gifted them to people. Four years later, we’ve inspired people to start design careers because of that book, and some worked with African unicorns like Moniepoint and Flutterwave. One of the giveaway winners bought a laptop and paid it forward to someone else at the Global Creative Festival.
It is not a story I could have written myself when writing the book, but that’s the power of an impactful community.
We also have regular workshops and collaborate with universities in the UK to train their students. So it’s not just about learning the theoretical aspects of design or technology from their professors; they also learn from people with active design and tech careers. We also have several career templates to help people reach their full potential at work.
For the African community, we have a publication called Coloured Layers, which celebrates African women in design and technology. When you empower women, you empower communities. The first edition featured twelve outstanding women; another edition will be published this March 2025 for International Women’s Day. We’ll share stories of African women in sustainability worldwide.
Let’s not forget the wealth of educational and inspirational content we have published across media formats in the last five years, reaching over 100k people across social platforms.
When I think about Designer Babe’s impact, I don’t solely consider numbers because I know what design has done for me and how it has changed my life. People are looking up to Designer Babe, applying what they’re learning through the platform and building careers for themselves—becoming global talents and changing the lives of their families. As soon as one person’s life changes, you see that change having a positive ripple effect through their community. Our success stories are a testament to our commitment to creating lasting change in the creative ecosystem.
TC: Describe the last Global Creative Festival in one sentence and then tell us what to expect from the Global Creative Festival in 2025.
DB: I will go to the website and read the one sentence I put there because it’s true. “Imagine the brightest minds in creativity and technology gathering to inspire, collaborate, and shape the future over a glass of wine.” That’s literally what the GCF is.
In terms of what to expect, the festival will always take different shapes based on the needs of our community, but there are a few things you’ll always see at a Designer Babe event. Number one, there will be networking, which we intentionally curate to ensure people spark connections. There will also be panels, keynotes or fireside chats designed to inspire action, offering tangible tools for navigating successful careers and life.
At the last event, we had a panel on the future of work and a panel on leveraging global opportunities for local economies. I’m passionate about this discussion because, in 2025, job opportunities in the tech industry are not the same as they have always been. We have many more talented people out of jobs for several reasons, and the average Nigerian may not get a global opportunity that relocates them. It means people must figure out how to thrive in their current realities. What better way to help than bringing people already thriving in that sense—in fashion, design, research, HR, etc.— together and hearing them tell us what to expect in 2025 on how to thrive in local economies?
We also did the Case Challenge in collaboration with Selar at the just-concluded festival. The challenge was an opportunity for creatives to share their work on a global stage, get feedback from renowned judges, and walk away with a millionaire naira. These are some highlights of the events, but fundamentally, people will connect, grow, and learn at every Designer Babe event, and there will always be a lot to eat and drink. That’s standard.
In terms of expansion, the GCF is a traveling festival. We’ve had people travel from all over the world from Nasarawa to Abuja, Berlin to London just to attend the festival. The Designer Babe audience is global and so looking to the future, the question we’ll be answering is ‘How can we take this festival to different places and have people benefit from it?’. I love traveling and I’m always ready to hop on the flight and go to a new city. One of the things that I really look forward to is travelling to connect with people who are supporting and learning from the community.
Another thing is to also grow our sponsorship opportunities. This is not something that we can do alone. If you want to be able to achieve the things you dream of, you need to work with people. So we are definitely looking to grow our sponsorship opportunities, get more partners on board from small to big and medium-sized enterprises—as long as you want to connect with people who are creative, upwardly mobile, and ready to build a good future for themselves, the person to be talking to is Designer Babe. People listen to me so allow me to speak for you and connect you to a large audience.
We are also building more industry specific tracks. We already have the DB verse where people are connecting and learning and using our materials and resources. Designer Babe will remain focused on education and we’re working on products where people can have live career related education on-the-go. We want to get that out this year and ensure that it gets into the hands of the right people.
There is a lot of information going around the internet, so many things are happening in the world every day, and what that tells me is that there is still space for the right information to reach people. I guess I will have to do the work myself of putting those right things out there and I’m really happy to continue doing that.
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