Aïsha Dème : a career dedicated to promoting art and culture in Senegal

Aïsha Dème is a key figure on the Senegalese cultural scene. She co-founded in 2009 Agendakar.com, the very first web platform for promoting arts and culture in Senegal. Today, the Senegalese woman is actively dedicated to supporting cultural projects in her country through her cultural engineering agency, Siriworo.

After an academic background in computer science and a career of more than five years in the banking sector, nothing seemed to predestine Aïsha Dème to venture into the cultural world. Yet, that’s exactly what she decided to do in 2009, after resigning from her position at a bank where she worked, notably in banking IT. Along with a friend, she co-founded AgenDakar.com in 2009, a web platform aimed at showcasing the cultural scene in Dakar. The platform promotes various festivals, biennials, exhibitions, cultural events, and more organized in the Senegalese capital. Within a few years, the platform became a cultural reference in the country, appealing to young people, artists, and art and culture enthusiasts alike. Following this successful experience, many companies, particularly in the culture and telecommunications sectors, sought their expertise to optimize their online presence through their digital communication agency, Nelam Services, the publisher of the AgenDakar platform.

In 2014, she decided to explore new horizons by venturing into cultural consultancy. For three years, she worked on various projects for NGOs, companies, and artists. She collaborated with several major NGOs such as Oxfam and Amnesty, organized the release of albums for multiple artists… In 2017, she founded the cultural engineering agency Siriworo, specializing in supporting cultural projects, whether it involves design, implementation, event organization, project management, communication, or training… Among her flagship projects, she supported the release of the film *Atlantique* by Mati Diop in Senegal in 2019. She also initiated the support program “Peytel” aimed at cultural project holders. This initiative focuses on structuring artistic and cultural projects (music, visual art exhibitions, poetry, etc.), as well as incubating and accelerating young cultural entrepreneurs.

From 2016 to 2018, she also served as the president of the Music in Africa Foundation (MIAF), a pan-African organization whose mission is to support the African music sector by promoting knowledge sharing, creating opportunities, and building capacities for those involved through various projects. In 2020, Aïsha Dème published her first book, *Dakar, Nid d’Artistes*, released by Editions Malika.