𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐦𝐚'𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐀𝐄𝐅 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 — 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐎𝐟𝐟

Africa Energy Forum 2026 | CTICC, Cape Town | June 2026 | Special Edition

𝑁𝑜𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑-𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦𝑁𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒. 𝐴𝐸𝐹 2026 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 — 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝑝𝑙𝑢𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦. 𝐼𝑡 𝑝𝑙𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ. 𝐵𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑙 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑇𝐼𝐶𝐶, 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ 𝐴𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎'𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔.

By Amanda Mvinjelwa | SA Director, Financial Insight Africa | On the Ground, AEF 2026

Here is what nobody tells you about the last day of a major international conference: it should, by all laws of physics and human stamina, be the day everyone quietly edges towards the airport. Bags half-packed. Business cards stuffed into every pocket. Eyes carrying that glassy, post-three-networking-dinners look that says "I have met more CEOs in five days than in my entire life and I am magnificent but also deeply exhausted." That is the standard script. EnergyNet apparently did not get the memo.

Because the final day of the Africa Energy Forum 2026 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre was, against all reasonable expectation, the most electrically charged day of the entire week. And I mean that both literally and metaphorically. The deals had been inked. The handshakes had been shaken. The business cards had done their rounds. The investors who turned Cape Town into the world's most productive boardroom had already mentally boarded their flights to Johannesburg, Lagos, Dubai, and beyond. And yet — nobody left. Not early, anyway. Because EnergyNet, bless their beautifully relentless souls, had one more card up their sleeve.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐡, 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞.

The YES Programme: When Energy Transition Gets Personal

The YES Programme — EnergyNet's flagship youth engagement initiative — is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper and turns out to be extraordinary in practice. The premise is simple and radical in equal measure: take young people from universities and communities across South Africa, drop them into one of the most significant energy conferences on the African continent, and let what happens, happen.

Students from the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town arrived in numbers. They came from townships and suburbs, from engineering faculties and policy studies departments, from places where the idea of rubbing shoulders with global energy investors is not exactly part of the Tuesday morning curriculum. They came hungry — not for the catering, though I will not pretend the catering wasn't also excellent — but hungry for knowledge, for conversation, for access to the kinds of rooms their parents could only dream about.

And here is what the YES programme understood that so many corporate youth initiatives get spectacularly wrong: these young people were not brought in to sit quietly and look inspired. They were brought in to engage. To ask questions. To challenge assumptions. To bring an energy — the actual, literal kind, and the other kind — that even the most seasoned energy sector veterans in the room admitted they hadn't felt in a while.

"𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑚. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑚 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑡."  Simon Gosling, Founder, EnergyNet

𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐭 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐬.

Let us take a moment to appreciate Simon Gosling, the founder of EnergyNet Ltd., who built the Africa Energy Forum from the ground up into the kind of event that makes Cape Town briefly forget it is not Geneva. Because Simon's involvement in the YES programme is not a tick-box exercise. It is not a sustainability slide deck footnote. The man is genuinely intentional about what happens when young minds meet sector leaders at scale.

Consider the timing: this final day of AEF 2026 fell squarely in the middle of Youth Month in South Africa. June. The month the nation stops — or should stop — to reckon with the enormous energy, talent, and potential sitting in schools and universities and communities that are still too often excluded from the conversations that shape their futures. It is not, as Simon would no doubt agree, a coincidence that it landed this way. It is an alignment. A signature. A deliberate act of calendar choreography that said: these two things belong together.

Cape Town had spent the week as the epicentre of African energy deal-making. Investors from across the globe had poured in. Contracts had been signed over espressos and across boardroom tables and beside exhibition stands. And now, on the final day, the city leaned into something more personal. More generational. More lasting than any single contract.

𝐌𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐦, 𝐀𝐦𝐮𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐢, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐒𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝

As Financial Insight Africa, we did what we do best on the ground at AEF: we talked to people. All the people. Our BK — one of our young journalists from Financial Insight who was on the ground conducting interviews — was tasked with the most delightful assignment of the week: interviewing the young participants and the programme alumni. And something shifted for Buko Klaas (BK) in those conversations that I suspect will echo long past this conference week.

First up: Miriam Visconti, 15 years old, who arrived at AEF 2026 with the kind of bright-eyed, zero-tolerance-for-mediocrity energy that makes the rest of us quietly resolve to try harder. Fifteen. She is fifteen. And she was not there to take selfies with name badges in the background, though I will not blame any teenager for doing exactly that at an event of this calibre. Miriam was there to meet leaders. To ask questions. To understand an industry that will define her adult life in ways that the energy executives currently running it can barely predict.

She was, in a word, magnificent. In two words: utterly fearless.

"𝐵𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑒. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡. 𝐼𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒. 𝐼𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓." Amukelani Nkhi, CEO, Waste to Watt Innovations | YES Programme Alumna 2025

Then there was Amukelani Nkhi — Founder of Waste to Watt, a graduate of the YES programme's 2025 cohort, and proof of concept made human. Amukelani is the living, breathing, company-founding answer to anyone who wonders whether youth empowerment initiatives actually produce anything beyond warm feelings and group photographs. She walked into AEF 2026 not as a delegate absorbing information, but as a CEO delivering it. From YES alumni to sitting at the same table as the people who were once her mentors. In one year. The programme works, and Amukelani is exhibit A, B, and C.

Watching BK interview both Miriam and Amukelani was one of those moments at AEF that the official agenda never quite captures — the kind of thing that happens in the margins of conferences and ends up being more important than the keynote. Youth speaking to youth about youth, on the greatest stage African energy has to offer. I dare you to tell me that isn't the point of all of this.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐋𝐢𝐭 𝐔𝐩 𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝

And then — and I need you to stay with me here, because this is the moment the whole week crystallised into something genuinely moving, even if it arrived wrapped in the kind of story that makes you laugh and feel things simultaneously — there was the panelist who talked about the community they had electrified.

Not metaphorically. Actually electrified. A community that had gone twelve years without reliable power. Twelve years of darkness, of early nights, of children doing homework by candlelight, of missing the football because the TV had no power and the phone battery was dead and the Willards battery — oh yes, the Willards battery — was the household's most treasured technology.

This panelist's solution had changed that. And on the weekend their project went live, for the first time in over a decade, that community sat down together and watched Bafana Bafana qualify for the World Cup.

Reader, I nearly wept. Because my grandmother's TV — and I am not even slightly exaggerating here — was powered by a Willards battery. That battery was the most reliable piece of infrastructure in her house. It sat on the shelf like a crown jewel, brought out for the big occasions, the news broadcasts, the Bafana matches, the moments when the family gathered around the screen and dared to hope together. If you grew up in South Africa with a grandmother like mine, you know exactly what I am talking about. The Willards battery was not a battery. It was a promise that the world outside could still reach you.

And now, in 2026, a young energy innovator has replaced the Willards battery with a permanent solution — and a community watched their national team qualify for the greatest sporting event on the planet. In the dark no more. Even my gran, from wherever she is watching over us, would have jumped up and cheered. The energy sector, ladies and gentlemen, is not just about megawatts and investment returns. Sometimes it is about the television in your grandmother's living room and the football on the screen and the community gathered around it, finally, properly, in the light.

𝐃𝐮𝐛𝐚𝐢 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝: 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐞

As the curtain fell on AEF 2026 — as the badge lanyards came off and the final espressos were drained and Cape Town began its post-conference exhale — something was already humming in the air about AEF 2027 in Dubai. New geography. New venue. The same extraordinary gathering of the people who are building Africa's energy future from the ground up.

And here is what I can tell you from the ground: the young people who came through the YES programme this year — Miriam, Amukelani & BK, and every student who showed up hungry and left full — they are not leaving the conversation. They are joining it permanently. We watched it happen in real time. We interviewed them. We saw the shift. The future leaders of the African energy sector just got their first taste of the table, and they liked what they found there.

EnergyNet built something remarkable this week. Not just the event — the event has always been remarkable. But the YES programme represents a kind of institutional courage: the belief that the people who will solve the energy challenges of 2040 are sitting in university lecture halls right now, and they deserve access to the room twenty years before they are supposed to. That is not charity. That is strategy. That is how a sector builds its next generation of leadership in plain sight, at full speed, with full commitment.

My gran would have approved of the whole thing. Though she would have mainly wanted to talk about the Bafana Bafana. And honestly? Same.

You built the room. We will make sure the world knows what happened inside it — every month, all year, until Dubai. Let's talk: michelle@leopardnoirluxe.com | +27 72 172 3955

About the Contributor: Amanda Michelle Mvinjelwa is SA Director of Financial Insight Africa and a contributor covering energy, investment, and youth leadership across Southern Africa. A certified Professional Director, accredited Chairperson, published author of The Woman Who Refused to Give Up, and a 4x Comrades Marathon finisher, Amanda covers the stories that matter — from the boardroom to the community living room.