Alumni Spotlight: Ummi A. Yakubu

Art Action Academy Conakry, Guinea 2017

Photo of Ummi Yakubu by Ishaya Bako

Ummi is a young professional in the interactive multimedia and design industry. Although her training is in animation, game design & development, Ummi’s passion for development has seen her engage in projects that range from constructing houses for impoverished families in Alabama with Habitat for Humanity to 3D printing prosthetic limbs for amputees within Nigeria with a non-profit she co-founded with her brother, the Cyberlogik Foundation.

Her work include motion sensor games used for tourism and medical rehabilitation, web based games used for advocacy on the impact of healthy eating, as well as mobile educational children’s books used to improve vocabulary. As a video editor, Ummi has worked on various award winning documentary narratives including Silent Tears, a documentary on gender based violence, and Uprooted a documentary that sheds light on changing gender norms and cultural practices as a result of the Boko-Haram conflict in Borno State.

Ummi is currently working on a mobile game that’s aimed at increasing civic responsibility. “It’ll be the first project where the C4AA workshop teachings will be used in every step of the project. So, I’m excited to see if/how the outcome would differ from before the workshop, and what is to be learned from that.” Ummi said that concepts from the workshop now form an integral part of her process for planning and executing her projects, even beginning in the advocacy stages.

“It’ll be really had to find any part of the workshop that wasn’t useful!”

Below are some of her C4AA favorites that she mentioned:

Cost-Benefit Mapping: Really gives a meaningful insight into what I’m asking my target audience to give up as compared to what they gain in return. It has helps in framing the messaging because I’m conscious of what the stakes are.

Power Mapping: It is awesome at helping me effectively leverage my network to get stakeholders’ attention.

Creative Mapping: the embodiment of a great tool that helps think outside the box; it completely makes the box disappear!

Steps of Persuasion: an effective tool in figuring out what the project’s purpose is, its strengths and the kind of people I need to collaborate with to mitigate its weaknesses; in order to push my target audience further towards the desired action.

Ummi also said that Sound Boarding from the workshop was incredibly helpful to her. “Discussing ideas and strategies with people that understand that both the art and the activism components of the project are equally as important, it makes all the difference in the world.”

“The AAA workshop has given me tools that help me balance between the effect-focused world of activism, and the affect-heavy world of art. It has definitely been a positive turning point in my activism.”

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