Winnie Karanu is the AI Skills Director, Kenya at Microsoft Elevate and a strategic leader with over 15 years driving public-private partnerships and digital transformation across Africa. She partners with educational institutions, nonprofits, labor organizations, and government agencies to democratize access to AI education and tools.
Before Microsoft Elevate, Winnie served as Business Development Manager for Strategic Partnerships at the Microsoft Africa Transformation Office, forging alliances with international organizations, governments, and ecosystem enablers to drive continental digital infrastructure and skills programs. At Microsoft 4Afrika, she shaped the strategy for digital agriculture, collaborating with development banks, startups, NGOs, and ministries to scale AI-powered solutions. She was appointed as an advisor and representative of the private sector to several committees in the Agricultural sector, including the Blueprint for Digital Transformation of Agriculture in Africa by Smart Africa.
Winnie holds a BA in Economics and Communication. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a Change Management Practitioner, currently pursuing an MSc in Development Finance. Her mission is to empower communities, bridge the digital divide, and foster inclusive economic growth through strategic AI upskilling and collective action.

Dr. Girmaw Abebe Tadesse is a Principal Research Scientist and Manager at Microsoft’s AI for Good Research Lab, where he leads the Africa team in developing AI solutions for agriculture, healthcare, biodiversity, and more. He collaborates with a diverse range of partners, including governments, non-profits, academic institutions, and startups. He holds multiple US. patents, and his work has received Best Paper Awards at conferences, been published in leading journals such as Nature, and highlighted by media outlets including the BBC, WSJ, and ROW. He is an active program committee member and speaker at global AI conferences, including ICLR 2023 (Kigali), ICLR 2024 (Vienna), IJCAI 2024 (Jeju), and ICCV 2024 (Paris). He previously worked as a Staff Research Scientist at IBM Research Africa and as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford. He earned his PhD from Queen Mary University of London through the Erasmus Mundus Double Doctorate Program.

Akua Gyekye is Microsoft’s Head of Government Affairs for Africa, responsible for shaping the company’s public policy agenda and leading a team of policy professionals across the continent. Together, they focus on key policy areas including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data privacy, cybersecurity, digital safety and integrity, and international trade. The team engages with governments, civil society, and industry leaders to help shape inclusive and future-focused technology policy across Africa.
Akua brings over 20 years of cross-sector experience in public policy, technology, law, finance, and international development, with a career that spans the private sector, multilateral institutions, and government affairs. She joined Microsoft from WhatsApp, where she led public policy and government affairs across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Before that, she spearheaded election integrity efforts at Meta in Africa and played a key role in establishing and expanding the company’s first Africa Policy Team. She also created and implemented pan-African campaigns on digital connectivity and online safety.
Earlier in her career, Akua served as a legal advisor in Liberia and Nigeria for the World Bank, IFC, and USAID, and later worked as a project finance lawyer at Clifford Chance. She also has years of experience working with government departments, NGOs, and international think tanks across the U.S., Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Akua holds an LL.M. in International and Comparative Law from George Washington University, a Law Degree from Cambridge University, and a BA in Law and Society from American University, with minors in International Relations and Spanish. She is admitted to practice law in both New York and the United Kingdom, fluent in English and German, and currently lives in Nairobi with her husband.

Dr Jacki O’Neill is the founding Lab Director of Microsoft Research Africa, Nairobi. An ethnographer by trade, she is passionate about designing technologies that enhance, rather than remove, agency and create sustainable futures. She brings this passion to Microsoft Research Africa, where she leads a multidisciplinary team, combining research, engineering, and design to pursue an ambitious research agenda aimed at building more equitable AI. This involves building culturally and linguistically sensitive AI tools and platforms, which requires foundational innovation in NLP and African languages, resource-constrained computing, generative models, and human-computer interaction (HCI). We will only be able to achieve this by developing and deploying new practices of Human-Centred AI (HCAI) to build better AI models, technologies, and interactions. Over her career, Dr Jacki has led major research projects in AI, the future of work, financial inclusion, and global healthcare. She has >50 peer-reviewed articles, two innovation awards, and 16 patents.

Dr. Rislan Abdulazeez Kanya is the Founder and CEO of the Centre for Climate-Smart Agriculture (CCSA) at Cosmopolitan University, Abuja, a research and innovation hub dedicated to reducing climate risks in agriculture through emerging technologies and sustainable financing models. At CCSA, he leads pioneering work on soil health, smart irrigation, and nutrient efficiency, while linking smallholder farmers to digital innovation and affordable finance.
He previously served as Deputy Vice Chancellor for IT, Research, and Innovation at Baze University, Abuja, and is currently Technical Adviser on ICT and Digital Economy to the Governor of Jigawa State. He has spearheaded the creation of the ICT and Digital Economy Agency, the Residents Identity Management Agency, and the Jigawa COMPETE program, which is transforming education through teacher training, digital classrooms, and future-ready skills.
Dr. Kanya has attended executive programs and contributed to projects at leading institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the National University of Singapore (NUS), INRIA in France, and CEIMIA in Canada. He has also worked on initiatives supported by UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank. He holds a Ph.D. in Computing (ICT4D), a B.Sc. in Computing and Information Systems from the University of Portsmouth, and an MBA from the University of Wales at Thames Business School in Singapore.