27 African Varsities, Others Ready For AI Summit In Nigeria

A total of 27 African universities and other key stakeholders in technology and education are set to participate in a three-day Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Education Summit scheduled to be held in Lagos from 18 February to 20, 2026.

VarsityMentor, a leading non-profit organisation, is organising the summit focused on empowering university students, as part of a broader strategic mandate funded by the GenAI in CS Education Consortium created by the University of San Diego.

In a press release titled “Reimagine Computer Science Education”, the founder of VarsityMentor and Google UX Researcher, Obinna Anya, said, “This upcoming summit marks a strategic evolution for VarsityMentor, which is deepening the proven precedent set by its two previous large-scale conferences. Those earlier events focused specifically on student empowerment and professional readiness; this current mandate shifts the focus upstream to the institutional level, ensuring that the very foundations of African computer science education are aligned with the AI-driven future.”

Designed to bridge the digital gap across the continent, the summit aims to position African universities at the forefront of the rapidly evolving AI landscape while modernising Computer Science curricula to meet the demands of an AI-driven future.

Academic faculty from multiple African universities will converge with visionary technology professionals, founders and policy actors to deliberate on how best to embed generative AI, ethics and systems thinking into university-level education.

Regarding the summit’s objective, Anya said the initiative is driven by a vision to reposition African graduates as global innovators rather than passive users of technology.

He said, “Our vision is to raise a new generation of African graduates who are not just consumers of technology, but the architects of the global AI revolution.”

The summit will be anchored in three core objectives: curriculum co-creation through hands-on design sessions, in which faculty members and industry leaders will jointly redesign Computer Science modules to incorporate AI-driven development and ethical considerations.

Others are policy alignment through engagement with Ministries of Education across African countries to ensure new educational standards are scalable and nationally recognised; and talent pipeline development to create direct links between universities and Africa’s growing technology ecosystem to support internships and job placements, Anya said.

According to the media consultant to VarsityMentor, Sir Peter Osamgbi, the summit will attract computer science faculty, curriculum leads, department heads, Ministry of Education representatives and CS education innovators from universities across Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Malawi and Ethiopia.

The event will also feature a panel session, hosted by Valerie Ehimhen, a technical programme manager at Google Quantum AI and co-founder of the PETGA Initiative, with prominent technology founders.

Also commenting on the importance of technical depth, Adekunle Adeyemo, a software engineer and long-time global lead of the Africans@Google employee resource group, underscored the need for strong infrastructure and reliability in education. He noted that scaling Africa’s tech ecosystem requires more than access to new tools; it requires a solid foundation in systems-level thinking and reliability.