2 South Africans on Young Ones 2025 jury

The Young Ones 2025 jury includes two South Africans, (left) Verusha Maharaj, managing director, Red & Yellow Creative School of Business and (Right) Nontokozo Tshabalala, multidisciplinary artist and creative director, Creative Shall Govern. (Image by Lesley Svenson, Bizcommunity)

The 2025 jury is made up of 120+ creatives in more than 25 different countries and regions.

A number of this year’s judges also work with creative students, either as professors or lecturers, and thus know exactly what it takes for students to take that jump from an academic life to a professional one.

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Verusha Maharaj

Verusha Mahara has over 16 years of experience in the marketing and advertising industry.

During her career she has held roles across the brand, agency & consulting space.

She has helped start-ups to multinationals and has managed teams across several countries within Africa.

Her current role combines her passion for marketing & advertising with her desire to close the skills & diversity gap within the next generation of creative talent.

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Nontokozo Tshabalala

Tshabalala also goes by Future_of_Brown (F.O.B) and is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, poet, Afrofuturist, speaker, lecturer and designer who was based in Malmö Sweden but has recently relocated back to South Africa.

Born and raised in Standerton, she uses her work as an avenue for posing deeper questions about her identity and the Black experience wherever she goes.

Inspired by her nephew, Siyamthanda (Ncufi), she writes and creates from a place of curiosity and instinct often using colour, collage, song and poetry to express her thoughts.

Tshabalala is the co-founder of Mam’Gobozi Design Factory, a design studio celebrating the Afrikan identity through creativity. She is also the founder of a community-building initiative called Creatives Shall Govern.

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Within her vast practice, she’s also co-curated her first big exhibition called Neither Here Nor There (2020) which showed at Konsthall Blå Stället(Sweden), and done work for Facebook Africa and The Africa Centre (London) and Future Brown Space(Sweden).

Her work has been shown at The Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) Extended, Malmö Konsthall, The National Museum of World Culture(Gothenburg), and Röda Sten Konsthall (Gothenburg).

Among her accolades, she was awarded the Loeries Young Creative award as well as the Mail&Gaurdian Top 200 Young South Africans, which is a list that recognises and rewards youth who have created resilient, entrepreneurial and robust solutions, actively shaping South Africa and playing a pivotal role in its future.

Her goal is to transform society one creative avenue at a time.

Young Ones entries

Young Ones celebrates the cutting-edge creativity of students, which means in order to submit, you must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Currently enrolled in or recently graduated (March 2024) from an undergraduate or graduate university program, or portfolio program. PhD Candidates are not eligible.
  
• No more than two years of industry experience – students enrolled in a graduate or portfolio program with more than two years of professional experience are not eligible for this competition.
  
• Work must be created during your university career – this includes coursework or personal projects.
  
• Work created for an internship is ineligible.
  
• Entrants must be 18 years or older.

Regular entry deadline: 28 February, Entry fee: $55
Final deadline: 14 March, Entry fee: $65