Africa Forges Own Ai Path At Kigali Summit

At the start of April, the Global AI Summit on Africa took place in Kigali. The event was hosted by Rwanda's Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution C4IR and the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum.

After the global Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, held in Paris in February, this Africa-specific event was billed as an opportunity for the continent to start hammering out its own approach to critical policy issues.

Bringing together heads of government, business leaders, investors, and international organisations from across the continent, the summit sought to make tangible progress on 'shaping Africa's role in the global AI economy."

The event was also seen as a sign that African governments and organisations are determined to forge a path forward for the continent that manages the risks associated with this new technology - while also seizing its potentially transformative potential across strategic sectors such as health, agriculture, and finance.

Bilal Mateen, chief AI officer at London-based healthcare firm PATH and summit attendee, tells African Business that "no individual event is going to solve all the problems, but we require these kinds of convenings to keep up the momentum and energy."