Desirable Futures and digital technologies in Africa

About

In current scholarly and media discourses on digital technologies in Africa, there seems to be what Kanyinsola Obayan, researcher of Nigerian computer history, calls a  “hypervisibility of innovation from Africa and the Global South”. This hypervisibility is on the one hand, a chance for new approaches like the indigenisation of digital innovations and the decolonisation of tech tools, on the other hand, it seems to reproduce old promises of technology as a one-size-fits-all solution to development issues, inequalities and environment. This form of technosolutionism is heavily invested in by African public and private actors, technologies being deemed as solutions to the continent’s challenges : tackling social inequalities, climate change, youth unemployment, state-building or the advent of the old “Africa Rising” narrative.
Taking a critical perspective, this seminar will ask about desirable futures for digital technologies as imagined and practised by and for Africans. By bringing together scholars in a monthly series of paper presentations and discussions on the current landscape of digital technologies and their impact in and on Africa, the seminar aims to lead to a critical reflection on current tech developments and possible futures on the continent. 

The seminar will bring together scholars working on topics ranging from African entrepreneurship and tech innovations, to technologies in state-building, digital modernity and new forms of subjectivisation, technologies and education and AI from African perspectives. It intends to provide a space of exchange especially for young and emerging scholars to collectively reflect on a critical approach towards digital technologies in Africa, possible digital futures, and a decolonisation of digital technologies.

Program

Session 1 : Introduction to the Seminar  - (29 janvier 2026)

• Michaël Bourdon (CERI - Sciences Po/CNRS)
• Anna K. Osterlow (CHSP - Sciences Po)

Session 2 : AI from an African perspective: Panafricanism, statemaking and digital technologies (5th February 2026)

• Arthur Gwagwa (Utrecht University): “The epistemic marginalisation of Sub-Saharan Africa in AI governance”
• Cecilia Passanti (Université Paris-Cité): "Making Politics though Infrastructures: Computer Scientists as Transnational Actors of African Decolonisations"

Session 3 : African Digital Policies and Future Imaginaries (March 5th 2026)

• Janine Patricia Santos (KU Leuven): "Making ‘desirable’ digital futures: La jeunesse numérique and Lomé’s digital transformation".
• Charlotte Escorne (Université Paris 8, IFG Lab, GEODE) : "The Senegalese cyber strategy under President Macky Sall. Digital development at the heart of issues of influence, control and power"

Discussant : Camille Chanial (Medialab - Sciences Po)

Session 4 : Imagining modernist cities in Africa through technology (April 2nd 2026)

• Junnan Mu (Harvard University): When the Savannah Speaks Back: Techno-locales and the Remaking of "Silicon Savannah"  
• Fatoumata Diallo (Sciences Po) : Imagineering the local BRT: Cape Town and Lagos’ experiences in crafting their Bus Rapid Transit systems for desirable urban futures

Discussant : Alexandrine Royer (University of Cambridge)

Session 5 - Digital technologies and State practices (7 mai 2026) 

• Caroline King (University of the Witswatersrand) : “Volatile Value Systems: Mobile Money in Ghana”
• Corentin Cohen (University of Oxford) : "Management consultancies, technological imaginaries and the return of planning in Africa"

Discussant : Joel Ansah (CERI - Sciences Po/CNRS)

Session 6 - Digital entrepreneurship and new development heroes ? (2 juin 2026)

• Tessa Pijnaker (Utrecht University)
• Michaël Bourdon (CERI - Sciences Po/CNRS)