Africa’s digital future is being built right now, and the open question is who holds the tools. This week two stories pointed at the same gap from different sides: a warning about depending on AI made elsewhere, and a push to put digital skills and online work into places far from the big cities.

Below, only what we could check against the original reports. Where a number is second-hand, we say so.

The warning: use AI, but help build it

Akinwumi Adesina, the former president of the African Development Bank, warned Africa against becoming dependent on AI built elsewhere. He was giving a keynote titled “Africa Next: Building the Demographics Asset Class” at The Seyi Tinubu Colloquium, themed “Shaping the Future” (Daily Trust via allAfrica, reported 13 October 2026).

He urged African innovators to build AI for local languages, businesses, agriculture and education, not only consume tools made abroad. His framing:

“The question is not whether AI will change Africa. It will. The question is whether Africa will shape that change.”

That raises a question worth asking as a young person: when the tools you use were built elsewhere, whose languages and problems do they handle best?

On the ground: Kenya’s Jitume digital hubs

Kenya has opened another Jitume ICT hub, this time at the Kenya School of TVET’s Moiben Campus in Uasin Gishu County, bringing the national network to 391 equipped digital hub sites (TechAfrica News, 13 October 2026). The programme gives young people access to digital skills training and online work outside the major cities, with the stated aim of letting them reach international clients and employers without relocating.

The figures the report cites:

391 equipped hub sites, with 23,387 devices in total
Virtual desktop infrastructure rolled out at 186 of Kenya’s 253 TVET institutions
More than 115,000 trainees and young people taken part so far
67 TVET institutions still waiting for equipment, which the government plans to cover next

The gap matters as much as the headline. A hub gives access to a computer and training, but the report does not say how many trainees have found paid work, so that part of the story is still open.

Where creators fit, and a number to handle with care

Online work is not only freelancing for foreign clients. Content creation is another route. One widely repeated figure puts Africa’s creator economy at about $3.4 billion in 2024, credited to TechCabal’s 2024 Creator Economy Report and TechPoint Africa, with a projection of $7.2 billion by 2026 (Coachli).

Two cautions. First, that page is a blog quoting the reports, and we did not open the originals. Second, the $7.2 billion is a projection with no source named, so it should not be described as the current size of the market.

What to watch

Three things to follow: whether the remaining 67 TVET institutions get equipment, whether hub trainees turn skills into paid work, and whether African-built AI tools follow the call Adesina made.

Sources

Adesina warns Africa against AI dependence (allAfrica / Daily Trust)
Kenya commissions Jitume ICT hub in Uasin Gishu (TechAfrica News)
Africa’s creator economy 2026 (Coachli), second-hand

A Gleamm story

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