Photo: Stefanie Loos / European Union, 2025 / EC – Audiovisual Service / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Africa must turn its growing use of technology into ownership, production and lasting economic power, says Ubuntu Group founder and chief executive Mamadou Kwidjim Toure.
A call for digital agency
In an interview published by CIO Africa on 4 November, Toure argued that the continent cannot rely solely on imported platforms, systems and infrastructure if it wants to benefit fully from the next wave of artificial intelligence and digital finance.
DGBN has also reported on Ethiopia presses case for African AI sovereignty under Abiy’s AU mandate.
He said African governments and businesses should see technology as more than a procurement decision. In his view, lasting change requires investment in skills, institutional capacity, local companies and policies that connect innovation to wider economic opportunity.
Toure warned that Africa could reproduce older forms of dependency in a digital economy if other regions continue to own the algorithms, data infrastructure and intellectual property behind technologies used across the continent.
Beyond access to ownership
Toure pointed to mobile money as evidence that African technology can widen participation in formal finance. But he said access to a digital service is not, by itself, economic empowerment when users still lack capital, education, markets or productive assets.
He identified AI, digital identity, payment systems and decentralised infrastructure as technologies with potential to strengthen productivity in agriculture, health, education and public services.
He also promoted blockchain and the tokenisation of real-world assets as possible tools for broadening access to investment. Toure said that, if properly regulated and responsibly implemented, tokenisation could allow smaller investors to take stakes in assets such as infrastructure, renewable energy, property and agricultural ventures.
For more context, read DGBN’s coverage of Nigeria sets 2046 target to keep 90% of internet traffic at home.
That prospect remains dependent on strong consumer protections, reliable regulation and public understanding. The technology alone does not remove investment risk or guarantee fair access to wealth.
Data, capital and a continental market
For Toure, digital sovereignty means African countries having meaningful influence over the direction of their digital economies. That includes data governance, regional cloud capacity, cybersecurity, digital identity and computing resources.
He said individuals should retain rights over their personal data, while strategic data generated on the continent should support African research, innovation and economic development rather than producing value primarily elsewhere.
Toure also called for African pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and development finance institutions to take a greater role in financing homegrown technology firms. He argued that stronger domestic investment would help retain more of the value created by African innovation.
He cited fragmented regulations, limited growth-stage funding and high infrastructure costs as major barriers to companies seeking to scale across borders. Greater continental market integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area, he said, could help address those obstacles.
Why it matters
For Black communities across Africa and the diaspora, the question is not simply whether people can use AI and digital services. It is who owns the systems, shapes the rules and receives the economic return.
Related DGBN reporting includes Africa urged to build homegrown AI as $103bn opportunity comes into view.
Toure’s intervention puts a direct challenge to policymakers and investors: Africa’s digital future cannot be built only on consumption. It must be built around African talent, African capital and African control over the technologies that will shape work, wealth and public life.