Africa Tech Festival 2024 Highlights
Last year was an incredible success! Africa Tech Festival 2024 brought together innovators, leaders, and tech enthusiasts from around the world to celebrate and explore the latest advancements in technology. Here are some highlights from the event:
In 2024 Africa Tech Festival brought together...
1,450+
In Person Attendees
6,000+
Attending Companies
1000+
VIPs
450+
Speakers
250+
Exhibitors
199+
Investors
Top Speakers
Our past speakers are industry leaders and innovators who have shaped the tech landscape. Here are some of the top speakers from 2024:
Vodacom
Dejan Kastelic
Alex Okosi
Giga UNICEF
Naroa Zurutuza
Top Sessions
Our sessions covered a wide range of topics and were highly attended. Here are some of the most popular sessions from 2024:
Keynote Panel: Driving Corporate Innovation: Leadership Insights from Africa's Top CEOs
Panel: The AI Opportunity for Africa: Shaping the Future with Responsible Innovation
Fireside Chat: The State of Cybersecurity in South Africa
Panel: The Future of Content in the Digital Age: Content Curation, Engagement, and Tech Integration
Ministerial Panel: Striking the Balance: Achieving Innovation-Friendly Tech Regulation
Panel: Finance Disrupted: The Convergence of Fintech and Traditional Banking in Africa
Keynote Panel: Seizing the AI Opportunity: A New Phase of Business Transformation and Workforce Evolution
Panel: Overcoming the Funding Winter: Strategies for Early-Stage Start-Ups
Take a look at our
Past Sessions
Relive the insights and discussions from our 2024 Headline Keynotes:
Strengthening Connectivity for the AI Era
Connectivity outages caused by damaged undersea cables have caused huge disruption across the continent throughout 2024, underscoring vulnerabilities of the continent's digital infrastructure. Africa faces a dual challenge: strengthening existing networks to meet rising customer demands while expanding connectivity to stay competitive in the global AI landscape. With the funding gap expected to hit $100B by 2030 due to increasing bandwidth demand from enterprise transformation and a rising consumer class, TMT sectors must invest significantly while ensuring affordable, reliable services. This panel discusses how innovative financing and collaboration can support the development of a robust digital network, while also bridging the rural-urban divide to unlock the potential of underserved areas.
- Government support: learn how African governments can align with digital stakeholders to support future infrastructure investments and extend connectivity to the rural underserved.
- Promoting digital sovereignty: unpacking the role of the private sector in achieving digital sovereignty through diversification and strategic partnership.
Big Tech & Telcos: Collaborating on Digital Infrastructure Investment
With the digital infrastructure funding gap in Africa expected to reach $100 billion by 2030, and a projected 615M new internet users by 2025, significant private investment is required to enhance value, reduce costs, and make telecom services more affordable. As telecom operators face mounting pressure to increase spending, and explore partnerships with global tech and OTT providers, major consumers of African telecom connectivity. This panel unpacks how disruptive solutions, public-private partnerships (PPPs), and co-investments can drive digitalisation and ensure effective last-mile delivery. In this discussion, our experts unpack:
- Collaborative investment: how mediation, PPPs, and fair regulatory frameworks can help African governments balance the investment interests of digital infrastructure stakeholders.
- A role for tech giants: is the investment from global tech giants in Africa's digital infrastructure through subsea cables, fibre networks, and data centres, sufficient and equitable?
Global Connectivity: AI Use Cases for a More Resilient Network
With AI transforming telecom networks worldwide, operators are leveraging artificial intelligence to optimise infrastructure, enhance resilience, and improve service delivery. As connectivity demands grow across Africa, AI-driven solutions are shaping the future of digital networks—helping to reduce downtime, improve efficiency, and ensure greater access to reliable telecom services. This fireside chat explores the evolving role of AI in global connectivity and how operators can harness its potential for long-term network sustainability and performance. In this discussion, our experts unpack:
- AI-powered network resilience: How automation, predictive analytics, and machine learning are helping telcos prevent outages and enhance connectivity.
- The future of digital infrastructure: How AI can support last-mile delivery, network expansion, and affordability across Africa.
- AI investment and partnerships: What’s next for telecom operators as they integrate AI into infrastructure and collaborate with global technology providers?
Session Insight Articles
How AI and Resilient Networks Are Transforming Connectivity in Africa
Africa’s telecom transformation is accelerating, fueled by advancements in AI-powered networks, 5G deployment in emerging markets, and increased digital infrastructure investment. These developments are critical to ensuring resilient connectivity and bridging the continent’s digital divide.
At Africa Tech Festival 2024, industry leaders tackled one of the biggest challenges facing Africa’s telecom sector: how to prevent major connectivity disruptions like the March 2024 cable crisis, which impacted 13 African nations.
AI-Powered Coding: GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on the Future of Software Development
AI is transforming software development at an unprecedented pace.
Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, joins Dr. Jeanne Fredericks at Africa Tech Festival 2024 to discuss AI-powered coding, the evolution of Copilot, and how AI is democratising software development across the world.
"Four years ago, Copilot was just an idea," Dohmke recalled. "Now, it's writing 25% of code in projects, and AI is changing the world."
Cyber Resilience: Moving Beyond the Buzzword with Ayanda Peta
In today’s digital world, cyber resilience isn’t just a technical issue - it’s a business-critical challenge. Ayanda Peta, CISO at African Rainbow Minerals Ltd, took the stage at Africa Tech Festival 2024 to break down how organisations can move beyond the buzzword of cyber resilience and implement real, actionable strategies.
“You probably don’t know whether your organization has been hacked or not,” Peta stated. “And maybe by the time you find out, it will be three months later. The real question is: what do you do about it?”
How AI is Reshaping Business and the Workforce Across Africa
AI is no longer a futuristic concept - it is actively transforming businesses, industries, and economies across Africa. But how can organisations harness AI while navigating governance, trust, and workforce evolution?
"By 2030, AI could add up to $2.9 trillion to Africa’s economy," stated Kojo Boakye, Vice President of Public Policy, Africa, Middle East and Turkey at Meta.
Driving Corporate Innovation: Leadership Insights from Africa’s Top CEOs
As Africa stands on the brink of a digital revolution, corporate leaders are at the forefront of shaping innovation, business transformation, and industry growth. But what does it take to drive meaningful innovation in a rapidly evolving market?
A selection of Africa’s top CEOs came together to share insights on innovation, policy challenges, and the future of business leadership on the continent.