Advokc exhibition stand at the summit on people-centred technologies. / HANDOUTNearly two decades after Kenya’s post-election violence inspired a technology platform that would go global, Ushahidi is asking a new question: who should control the technologies shaping Africa’s future?
The question took centre stage in Nairobi on Monday as African innovators, youth leaders, policymakers, peace practitioners, digital rights advocates, researchers, philanthropists and civil society organisations gathered for the opening of the Summit on People-Centred Technologies in Africa.
The three-day summit at the Sarit Expo Centre is examining how technology can support peace, accountable governance and stronger communities.
But organisers are looking beyond the excitement surrounding artificial intelligence, robotics and other emerging technologies.
They are asking who builds these technologies, who controls them, who benefits from them and what happens to people who are left out.
The debate has particular significance for Ushahidi, which was born out of Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election crisis.
As violence spread following the disputed presidential election, Kenyans struggled to document events across the country. A local blogger called for a technological solution to map reports of violence, prompting four Kenyan technologists to develop what became Ushahidi.
The platform allowed people to submit reports through SMS and the internet.
Its name, meaning “testimony” in Kiswahili, reflected its original purpose: giving people a way to make their experiences visible.
Since its founding in 2008, Ushahidi says its crowdsourcing tools have been used by thousands of groups and millions of people, including during elections, disasters and other crises around the world.
Almost two decades later, the organisation is at the centre of a wider debate over how technology should shape African societies.
The summit's exhibition floor showcases African-developed and community-focused solutions, with organisers placing grassroots innovation alongside technologies such as artificial intelligence, geospatial systems, robotics and data platforms.
The focus includes innovators working on conflict early warning, community accountability, resource governance, inclusion and civic participation.
The organisers are also calling for youth-led and community-rooted approaches, including technologies that can work in low-connectivity settings.
The message is that technology should not become a solution looking for a problem.
For Africa, digital tools are increasingly influencing elections, public discourse, policing, governance and access to information. The decisions made by technology developers can therefore affect how citizens experience power and public services.
Ushahidi has framed the summit around the need for greater accountability as digital systems reshape policing, public safety and civic life.
The exhibition forms part of the summit's broader argument that African communities should not remain passive users of technologies designed elsewhere.
Instead, they should have a role in designing, governing and sustaining the systems that affect their lives.
The summit is built around four major themes: locally owned peace technologies; governance, digital rights and ethical safeguards; policing, public safety and accountability; and the intersection of technology, critical minerals, climate transition and peace.
The focus on critical minerals highlights another challenge facing Africa's digital future.
Ushahidi says Africa's position in the global digital economy requires the continent to confront governance and environmental questions surrounding the minerals that underpin technological development.
A tool tracking mining-related displacement, for example, can also become a resource-governance, accountability and peacebuilding tool.
Opening the summit, Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communications and the Digital Economy William Kabogo said technology must strengthen rather than weaken the relationship between citizens and the state.
“Every digital system we build or regulate must earn and keep the trust of the people it serves,” he said.
Kabogo also highlighted artificial intelligence's potential to translate public information into local languages, identify problems in public systems, monitor drought and direct assistance to households.
At the same time, he warned that careless use of technology could expose personal data and erode public confidence.
But perhaps the question that best captures the Nairobi gathering is one Kabogo himself posed: who builds these technologies and who benefits from them?
It is a question that links the technology being discussed in Nairobi today to the technology Kenya developed during one of its darkest moments.
Ushahidi began because people needed a way to tell the world what was happening around them.
Almost 20 years later, Africa's technology conversation has become much bigger.
The challenge now is ensuring that the people remain at the centre of it.
