From groundbreaking innovations to bold visions, our 2025 Fellows share their predictions on where technology is headed—and the impact it could have on the world.
In 2025, participatory AI policy making in Africa will be different –it will actually be participatory! The African Union, its member states and their assemblage of financial partners will adopt a more inclusive approach to shape technology policy. Why? Because the challenges posed by AI and other emerging technologies are complex - they are economic, socio-cultural, political and span across sectors– they require an all-hands-on-deck approach to governance.
If you follow tech policy updates in Africa you may have heard this already. This article about What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player articulates the same call from African AI builders at the Deep Learning Indaba. I’ve also made these same calls: by proposing the adoption of community-based approaches to tech governance, urging African journalists to play their part in catalysing trustworthy AI and even coordinating an open letter to the African Union to allow more African voices to shape AI policies across the Continent.
This is not to say the African Union or policymakers in the Member States have not made efforts to ensure Africans participate in policy making processes. They have! But it has room to improve in 2025 and beyond. The consultation process for the Artificial Intelligence Continental White Paper and Roadmap was perhaps the best example of these efforts, featuring an extensive consultation period and partnership with the African Union High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) - a diverse group representing key stakeholders on the ground. Similarly, a few months later the African Union Commission, with the support of consultants, held a series of consultative workshops. However, this is not enough.
The imminent 2025 AU elections present an opportunity to explore new collaborative ways to harness the benefits of AI. We need to find new ways to ensure AI works in our best interests as a continent - leaving no one behind. Ultimately, this will enhance our approaches on AI regulation to effectively mitigate risks and harms.
On my end, I’m actively practicing how to work in the open and how the principles of openness can bolster learning and meaningful participation in AI governance processes. I will also be deliberate about my collaborations and how we as Africans can be more visible, on the policy matters dear to us. For me those are collective data governance, public interest tech development and policies guided by feminist reflections on power. Together with colleagues I have started thinking about the ways we could design public deliberations to shape AI. My hope is that this work will lead to better policy making relationships between African publics and the office-bearing policymakers.
There is power in music and I want to imagine that this amazing song of hope by Ivory Coast’s Dobet Gnahoré titled Issa will be playing in the backdrop throughout 2025, reminding us to make sure that all hands are on deck, always! Give it a listen and I look forward to working together in 2025.
Kristophina Shilongo is a 2025 Mozilla Fellow.
From groundbreaking innovations to bold visions, our 2025 Fellows share their predictions on where technology is headed—and the impact it could have on the world.