Pitcher Festival celebrates FCLA Awards’ winners

The Pitcher Festival of Creativity hosted winners of 2024 Future Creative Leaders Academy and the Young Professionals Academy. The Pitcher Festival is dedicated to nurturing and accelerating the career development of talented youths through two major platforms: the Future Creative Leaders Academy awards and the Young Professionals Academy. Each academy offers an intensive training programme, life-changing competitions, and connections with partner events.

The FCLA awards were presented by the Dean of the 2024 Future Creative Leaders Academy, Group Executive, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Coronation Group, Ngozi Akinyele. She commended the winning team from Nigeria and Romania, as their work set a new standard for what can be achieved through global collaboration.

The FCLA conducted a Cultural Fusion project for the first time in collaboration with Godmother, Romania with university students in Nigeria and Romania.  Members of the winning team in the Cultural Exchange Project were: Faderera Quadri, Pan-Atlantic University; Aanuoluwapo Oladejo, Ajayi Crowther University; Joy Bepo, Covenant University; Oladipupo Oladipupo, Fountain University; Adeola Yekinni, Olabisi Onabanjo University; Faith Ogunleye, Covenant University; Dragoș Velicu, Romanian-American University, Bucharest, Romania; David Băjan, Romanian-American University, Bucharest, Romania and Laurențiu Luican, Romanian-American University, Bucharest, Romania

Also, each year, the Future Creative Leaders Academy (FCLA) competitively selects a student to represent Nigeria at the Cannes Lions Roger Hatchuel Student Academy. This honour includes an all-expense-paid trip to Cannes Lions Festival in France, with stipend, which was sponsored by MediaFuse Dentsu Nigeria. The 2024 winner was Babafemi Okeleye of Mass Communication Department, Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo.

The 2024 FCLA Competition brief required the students to come up with strategies to promote the programme itself to fellow students in their institutions. The winners were: Bronze Medals: Boniface Abah, University of Ibadan and Afoma Nnaemeka, Covenant University; Silver Medal: Joy Bepo, Covenant University and Gold Medal: Kehinde Olawoyin, University of Ibadan

Every year, the Academy recognizes someone who goes beyond the normal call of duty to ensure that creative students become more creative.

The FCLA Lecturer of the Year 2024 was awarded to Dr. Yinka Egbokhare, a lecturer at the Communication and Language Arts Department, University of Ibadan.

The Young Professionals Academy awards segment followed the FCLA Awards. The Young Professionals Academy awards were presented by Lanre Adisa, CEO/CCO Noah’s Ark Communications and President of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN). In his remarks, he emphasized the importance of developing talent in the business and elevates creativity in an industry that provides a greater opportunity for people to interact with art.

CEO of CHINI Africa, Cannes Lions Festival representative in Nigeria, and Chairman of Pitcher Festival, Dr. Nnamdi Ndu, congratulated the winners, expressing gratitude to the faculty and partners for contributing to the programme’s success. He reassured the winners of the festival’s ongoing support.