Results
The workshop laid the groundwork for a refreshed product vision.
Digify Africa walked away with:
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A set of strategic foresight scenarios for content and tech development;
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Clear design principles for trust and credibility in mobile-first learning;
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A renewed understanding of learner futures – not just their current needs.
Futures Thinking isn’t about prediction, it’s about preparedness.
By helping Digify Africa sense, shape, and respond to signals of change, we turned foresight into actionable strategy - creating a learning product that is not only resilient, but transformative for Africa’s next generation.
Trust as a Strategic Pillar
A major theme that emerged was the future of trust. In a world of scams, misinformation, and data exploitation, Digify Africa’s WhatsApp product needed to bake trust into the learner journey, not just as a message, but as a lived experience.
Strategic Shift:
Trust was redefined not just as secure tech or accurate content – but as responsiveness, transparency, and a learner’s sense of being seen and understood.
The Future of Accreditation is Agile
Traditional accreditation models were seen as too slow and centralised for the speed of change. The workshop surfaced a likely future where peer validation, microcredentials, and real-world application take precedence.
Strategic Shift:
Digify Africa began exploring ways to elevate social proof, speed-to-skill, and portfolio-based evidence of learning outcomes.
The Future of Learning is Embedded in Daily Life
A transformative insight was that learning must become responsive, real-time, and contextual. Learners won’t carve out separate time to learn; instead, learning must adapt to their life rhythms.
Strategic Shift:
A vision emerged for content that’s:
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Intuitive to learner behaviour
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Delivered in micro-moments
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Context-aware, with nudges, recaps, and prompts that meet learners as they live, not just as they log in
Scope of Work
I facilitated a Futures Thinking workshop with Digify Africa’s leadership, product, and content teams. The aim was to help them explore:
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Future forces that could shape their learner base, technology stack, and content;
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Strategic opportunities and risks they needed to address today;
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And product and brand positioning shifts required to remain trusted, useful, and relevant.
Approach & Tools
To guide this process, I employed a series of futures thinking tools and methodologies:
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Futures Triangle: We mapped the pulls of the future, pushes of the present, and weights of the past to uncover the forces shaping learner behaviours and product expectations.
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Horizon Mapping: Helped teams identify short-, mid-, and long-term signals shaping the future of digital learning and entrepreneurship.
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Impact/Uncertainty Matrix: Enabled prioritisation of the most uncertain and high-impact developments to watch closely.
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Storythinking: Allowed teams to imagine alternative futures through narrative – framing what learners' lives might look like in 2–10 years and how the WhatsApp solution could evolve accordingly.
Digify Africa is an Edtech organisation focused on upskilling young Africans using accessible, mobile-first platforms.
With over 500,000 learners engaging with their WhatsApp-based learning solution, Digify Africa recognised the need to future-proof its learning product. They needed to anticipate emerging challenges, align with shifting user needs, and ensure their content strategy remained relevant and resilient in rapidly changing environments.
Challenge
