By Winnie Karanu, Microsoft AI Skills Director at Microsoft
By 2030, AI is projected to unlock 230 million digital jobs across Africa – a transformation comparable to South Korea’s post-war rise or India’s IT boom in the 1990s. Realizing this potential requires bold investment in digital skills across every corner of the economy.
Despite widespread ambition, with governments, donors, and private sector leaders prioritizing digital skills, progress remains uneven. The challenge is not only scale, but also coordination. Fragmented efforts and a lack of unified strategy continue to slow momentum and dilute impact.
To fully realize AI’s potential for job creation, Africa must build a coordinated, inclusive skilling ecosystem, where government, education, industry, and civil society work together to shape the AI economy. This means moving beyond isolated programs to scalable frameworks that prepare diverse audiences, from policymakers and educators to entrepreneurs and job seekers. It also requires infrastructure and tools, including large language models (LLMs) tailored to Africa’s linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts.
There is much to learn from the ongoing rollout of Kenya’s AI Skilling Initiative (AINSI), which presents a promising approach to progress. Its framework offers valuable insights to inform similar efforts elsewhere.
Government – the cornerstone of national AI capability
Strong government leadership is essential for building national AI capacity. Governments are uniquely positioned to set strategic priorities, regulate responsibly, and provide access to critical infrastructure and data.
Kenya’s Regional Centre of Competence for Digital and AI Skilling is a compelling model for countries seeking to institutionalize AI training. Beyond training around 1,500 public servants in AI and cybersecurity, the Centre’s structured approach, combining bootcamps and online programs, demonstrates how targeted, scalable interventions can build capacity across government, with almost 6,500 public sector officials across the country registered. Growing interest from countries like Uganda and Nigeria highlights its potential as a replicable model for inclusive and innovative AI ecosystems.
However, much work remains. To ensure skilling efforts lead to meaningful employment, harmonizing credentials and recognized qualifications across regions is vital. This validates skillsets and helps employers identify talent with confidence. Governments play a central role in setting these standards and aligning them with industry needs.
Industry – the vehicle for scaling transformation
For AI to drive national progress, it must be embedded across all industries, formal and informal. Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which account for over 44 million businesses across sub-Saharan Africa, are critical to this effort. Imagine how vast the impact would be if each MSME could use AI to hire just one more person?
AINSI’s cross-sector partnerships are helping build momentum. Collaboration with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) demonstrates how industry-led initiatives can accelerate AI skilling. KEPSA’s training of over 70,000 organizational leaders, professionals and SMEs in AI and cybersecurity is helping drive progress from the top down. Yet, there is more to learn about reaching underserved sectors and sustaining long-term impact.
Innovation in the informal economy is essential. MESH, the first professional network designed for microentrepreneurs, reaches over one million Kenyan entrepreneurs monthly with bite-sized learning, peer-to-peer trading, and community support. Its AI-focused content puts the voices of microentrepreneurs at the center, also uncovering persistent challenges around the sector’s AI adoption, including affordability, data access, and connectivity.
To truly empower the informal sector, skilling initiatives must be tailored to local realities.
Education – embedding AI for future readiness
Education is central to Kenya’s AI transformation efforts, with strategic partnerships integrating AI into higher education, technical training, and basic education.
In higher education, faculty skilling programs have supported curriculum reviews at 10 universities and delivered hybrid AI and software development training to computer science lecturers. Over 78,000 individuals in TVET institutions have gained AI fluency through bootcamps and online modules, helping to build foundational capacity.
At the basic education level, national initiatives are equipping K–12 teachers and leaders with AI skills, supported by master trainer programs and curriculum modernization. These efforts help bridge the digital divide and prepare learners for a tech-driven future.
However, to truly embed AI in education, a more integrated and forward-looking approach is needed: curriculum redesign that integrates AI concepts across subjects, continuous professional development for educators, robust infrastructure and tools, and localized skilling programs that reflect Africa’s diverse contexts and languages.
Civil society – empowering communities for inclusive AI
AINSI’s collaboration with community organizations demonstrates how AI access can be democratized and skilling efforts extended to those often left behind. By partnering with social, environmental, and impact-driven groups, the initiative is building trust and fostering inclusion at the grassroots level.
AINSI’s partnership with the Kenya Union of Gig Workers highlights the power of community-based delivery models to drive adoption and relevance in underserved areas. Their recent digital learning campaign provided gig and platform workers with career development resources and AI training, equipping over 1,300 participants with high-demand digital skills and increasing their visibility in the growing gig economy.
While there is still much to learn, early initiatives like this lay a strong foundation for scaling innovation, resilience, and opportunity across Africa.
Leveraging support from partners, Kenya’s AI Skilling Initiative has already trained over 600,000 people since its launch, demonstrating how inclusive, cross-sector efforts can scale effectively. Though still evolving, its focus on collaboration, community empowerment, and flexible frameworks offers valuable lessons. Continued investment in people and partnerships will help build future-ready workforces and drive inclusive growth across the continent.
Also Read: Op-Ed: AI Can Reshape Healthcare in Kenya If We Invest in the Right Foundations
