Vukosi Marivate is a Professor of Computer Science and the ABSA UP Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria, South Africa🇿🇦. Vukosi leads the African Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AfriDSAI). Additionally, he co-founded both the Deep Learning Indaba, co-founder of Lelapa AI, an African startup focused on AI for Africans by Africans, and advisor (after co-founding) to the Masakhane Research Foundation, which develops NLP technologies for African languages.
This year marked a shift across the continent. We experienced a deepening sense of self-actualisation in African AI, ML, and Data Science. We are no longer waiting for inclusion. We are claiming space, setting agendas, and building tools that reflect our realities. Across the ecosystem, we saw new African models, datasets, strategic gatherings, and startups that signal a continent increasingly confident in its own direction. These milestones were not only technical, they were cultural.
Our communities insisted on shaping narratives, as seen in the representation at and around the Global AI Summit on Africa in April 2025. Our researchers stepped onto global stages with authority, and our young scholars worked with the assurance that African excellence in AI is not emerging, it has always been here. Data Science Africa marked its 10-year anniversary, the Deep Learning Indaba convened in Kigali, collaborating with policy makers, and countless initiatives across the continent continued to deepen capacity and imagination.
For the Deep Learning Indaba, this year offered its own moments of reflection and pride. The IndabaX chapters reached even more countries,nurturing a new generation of organisers. Our alumni continued to lead labs, fellowships, and startups at home and abroad. And, in a symbolic marker of our collective journey, the Indaba finally gained a full Wikipedia page. Yet we recognise, always, that the Indaba is just one thread in a much larger tapestry. The progress of African AI this year was driven by hundreds of organisations, university labs, open-source communities, civil society groups, research collectives, and volunteers. The ecosystem is thriving because so many people chose to push forward together, often quietly and without spotlight.
Across the continent, we saw AI woven into the everyday work of social impact practitioners, academic labs, policy thinkers, entrepreneurs, and educators. Grassroots communities expanded capacity; built bridges between research and public good; and carried forward the essential work of documenting languages, digitising cultural heritage, understanding climate impact, improving health systems through AI, and much more. Our growing presence in global conversations this year was not accidental, it was the result of patient community work, advocacy, and persistence over many years. Africa entered 2025 with greater clarity about what we want from AI, and how we intend to build it.
As we move into 2026 and beyond, the call before us is to pair our ambition with generosity and care. Generosity in how we share knowledge, mentorship, datasets, compute, and opportunities. Care in how we build technologies that centre dignity, fairness, and the well-being of our communities. We will make missteps; we will encounter failures and learning moments. Our responsibility is to learn, support one another, and continue to build. The road ahead will demand collaboration, patience, and a commitment to lifting others as we rise. If this year taught us anything, it is that African AI advances when we lead with purpose. and when we lead for one another. We will need to expand the resources available to researchers and developers locally, especially expanding investments from African funders. Let us enter the new year with gratitude for how far the ecosystem has come, and with a renewed resolve to keep expanding what is possible, together.