Rwanda is Global AI Summit on Africa’s 2025 host
The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Rwanda (C4IR Rwanda), in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, will host the Global AI Summit on Africa (GAISA) 2025 from April 3-4 in Kigali, Rwanda, under the theme “AI and Africa’s Demographic Dividend: Reimagining Economic Opportunities for Africa’s Workforce.”
The summit seeks to reinforce the urgency to leverage AI to improve Africa’s growing workforce and advance Africa’s leadership in the age of AI. According to the summit, maximising AI’s tremendous benefits and mitigating its inherent risks will require multi-stakeholder engagement and inclusive dialogue.
The two-day summit will explore distinct opportunities for Africa to gain a competitive advantage; surface insights on how to best leverage global partnerships to mobilize investment in Africa’s AI capabilities; identify the infrastructural and institutional challenges to accelerate access to opportunities and scale innovation; and discern which governance approaches are most appropriate to address safety, inclusion, and innovation.
The official programme will start with an opening plenary on April 3 featuring a presidential panel and close with a farewell reception on April 4. It is formed around 7 thematic areas to guide dialogue and collaboration:
- People: Jobs, skills, and talent mobility in the global AI economy.
- Infrastructure: Barriers to adoption and building blocks for the future.
- Data: A strategic imperative for adoption, equity, and sovereignty.
- AI models: Gaps and opportunities for inclusive development—language, culture, and context.
- AI applications: Equitable and human-centric use cases to transform industries, economies, and societies.
- Entrepreneurship: Bolstering ecosystems of talent, knowledge, and capital to scale innovation-driven enterprises.
- Governance: Building trust and citizen protection to foster investment, innovation, and development.
1,000 leaders from the global AI ecosystem will convene in Kigali to advance an ambitious vision for Africa’s leadership in the age of AI, including heads of state, ministers, industry titans, startups, investors, multilateral institutions, civil society, and academia. However, participation is by invitation only.
Senior executives from the forum’s C4IR Rwanda Network, the Artificial Intelligence Governance Alliance, and the Edison Alliance will also be among the participants at the summit. C4IR Rwanda helps stakeholders harness the full potential of technological progress to transform industries, economies, and societies in an equitable and human-centered manner.
As the future-oriented global platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and cooperation, C4IR Rwanda explores exponential technologies and drives responsible adoption and application, leveraging a global network of 19 independent national and thematic centres.
Abeeb Lekan Sodiq is a Managing Editor & Writer at theafricandream.net. He is as well a Graphics Designer and also known as Arakunrin Lekan.
