The OpenSchool Initiative has concluded its Pan-African AI Governance Fellowship, marking what organizers describe as a deliberate effort to strengthen the continent’s capacity to regulate and oversee artificial intelligence systems as adoption accelerates across sectors.
The four-month programme, delivered in collaboration with Cosmopolitan University, System Strategy and Policy Lab, and Tanzeel, selected just over 70 participants through a competitive process spanning 22 countries. Fifty-five completed the Fellowship.
The initiative comes amid growing global concern over AI safety, regulatory fragmentation, and the concentration of technological influence among a handful of major economies. African policymakers have increasingly emphasized the need for governance frameworks tailored to the continent’s legal systems, economic structures, and developmental priorities.
The Fellowship was co-led by Engr. Abba Muhammad Gadanya, and. Najeeb G. Abdulhamid, a lead volunteer with OpenSchool, who structured the governance and regulatory framework underpinning the training.
Participants engaged with algorithmic accountability, risk classification models, public-sector AI procurement safeguards, cross-border regulatory coordination, and policy harmonization strategies. Capstone projects included draft national AI policy frameworks and sector-specific governance models designed for institutional consideration.
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The closing ceremony was held virtually and featured Keynote remarks from Catherine Muraga, Managing Director of Microsoft’s Africa Development Center, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Organizers framed the Fellowship as part of a broader shift from AI adoption toward AI governance. “Africa must not remain a consumer of artificial intelligence. We must become architects of its governance,” Gadanya said during the closing ceremony.
Observers note that while major AI regulatory frameworks are being shaped in the United States, the European Union, and China, African governments face the dual challenge of accelerating digital transformation while building institutional oversight capacity.
By convening policymakers, engineers, academics, and civil society actors, OpenSchool aims to develop a distributed governance network capable of contributing to national and regional AI policy development.
The graduation marks the end of the current cohort. Organizers say future iterations of the programme are under consideration.
