AhaSlides Stories

NeX AFRICA proves listening is the key to great training
(and 600 likes!)
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The Challenge

Mandiaye Ndao of NeX AFRICA runs a lot of workshops. His audience is worldwide and their ideas are varied. How can he hear everyone out and facilitate a meaningful discussion, all while making sure that his participants actually have fun and give him positive feedback at the end?

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The Result

After using AhaSlides, 80% of Mandiaye’s audience rated 5 out of 5 for his training. Participants submit opinions in interactive polls, word clouds and open-ended slides, and over 600 likes on his top presentation proves that training can be fun when the audience get a say. 

What is NeX AFRICA?

NeX AFRICA is a consultation and training company run by workshop veteran Mandiaye Ndao in Senegal. Mandiaye delivers many of his workships himself, all for the likes of the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU). Every day is different for Mandiate; he could be off to the Ivory Coast to run a training session for Expertise France (AFD), at home leading a workshop for the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), or on the streets of Dakar chatting with me about his work.

His events, however, are pretty much uniform. Mandiaye always makes sure the two core values of NeX AFRICA are ever-present in what he does…

  1. Democracy; the opportunity for everyone to have an input.
  2. Nexus; a connection point, a small hint to the unique, interactive training and facilitation sessions that Mandiaye runs.
 

The Challenges

Finding a solution to NeX AFRICA’s two core values was Mandiaye’s biggest challenge. How can you run a democratic and connective workshop, in which everyone contributes and interacts, and keep it highly engaging for such a diverse audience?

Before he started his hunt, Mandiaye found that collecting opinions and ideas from his workshop attendees (sometimes up to 150 people) was virtually impossible. Questions would be asked, a few hands would go up and only a small handful of ideas would come out.

He needed a way for everyone to participate and feel connected to each other power of his training.

My participants are always amazed. They've never seen this kind of interaction before. 

My style is storytelling plus interactivity. If you match these two in a presentation then people are so into it they don't even feel time passing!

Mandiaye Ndao

CEO, NeX AFRICA

The Results

After trialling Mentimeter as a potential solution in 2020, soon after, Mandiaye came across AhaSlides.

He uploaded his PowerPoint presentations to the platform, inserted a few interactive slides here and there, then began conducting all of his workshops as engaging, two-way conversations between himself and his audience.

But how did his audience react? Well, Mandiaye asks two questions in each presentation: what do you expect from this session? and did we meet those expectations? 

80% of the room is super duper satisfied and in the open-ended slide they write that the user experience was amazing“.

Why NeX AFRICA 💗 AhaSlides

Spinner Wheel

With a diverse crowd, Mandiaye found the best way to speak to individuals is the democratic (& completely random) spinner wheel.

Reports

Exporting reports of his training sessions help Mandiaye identify what works and what doesn't.

Polls and Word Clouds

Mandiaye is always looking for feedback on his sessions. With polls and word clouds he can collect people's fresh opinions and improve the experience for future audiences.

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