This February, Research ICT Africa will join thousands of AI heavyweights in New Delhi, India, for the world’s first Global South-hosted international AI Summit. As we convene for a series of in-person events at the main India AI Impact Summit and its supporting side events, we look forward to leveraging this unprecedented opportunity to share our data-driven insights on the lived realities of AI’s influence on Africans.
The India AI Impact Summit builds on the progress made at previous international forums – including the UK AI Safety Summit, the AI Seoul Summit, the France AI Action Summit, and the Global AI Summit on Africa – to reflect on the priorities, deliverables and multilateral frameworks shaping the rapidly advancing area of AI research and policy impact.
With a key focus on People, Planet and Progress, the Summit aims to forge concrete pathways towards the equitable realisation of human-centric, positive AI impacts for all. A key part of this work lies in centring and amplifying voices from the Global South, working with organisations such as our own, to promote just outcomes and transformative change everywhere – not just among the privileged few.
To do this, global leaders have committed to exploring the measurable impacts of AI thus far, including its urgent threats to energy consumption, labour security, and other human rights challenges. Hence, the Summit focuses on seven interconnected chakras for multilateral cooperation:
- Human Capital
- Inclusion for Social Empowerment
- Safe and Trusted AI
- Resilience, Innovation, and Efficiency
- Science
- Democratising AI Resources
- AI for Economic Growth and Social Good
Taking our learnings from the Africa Just AI project with us, our team will contribute to the development of actionable, multilateral solutions to global AI inequalities, using policy and research insights to ensure that AI is restorative, inclusive, and ultimately governed and deployed with an ethics of care and the wider public interest in mind.
To this end, participating in a wide range of events – including side events with the Participatory AI Research and Practice Symposium (PAIRS India 2026) and the Global Network Initiative’s (GNI) Multistakeholder Approaches to Participation in AI Governance (MAP-AI) initiative – will allow us to discuss AI justice, governance, and safety, from an African perspective, on a global stage.
Key engagements
| Date of Engagement | Event Type | Time & Accessibility | Venue | Session Title | Participation | Focus |
| Monday, February 16 2026 | Shared Learning Forum on AI (Pre-Summit Convening: GNI MAP-AI initiative) | Closed proceedings. | India International Centre | Decoding AI Jargon and Mapping Key Themes | Fireside discussion with Pria Chetty, Advisor to the CCG and GNI’s Strategic Multistakeholder Dialogue. | How AI terminologies and jargon affect AI justice, in line with RIA’s Just AI Framework of Inquiry. |
| Monday, February 16 2026 | India AI Impact Summit | Public. 17:30-18:25 IST | Bharat Mandapam | Reimagining the Public Value of Broadcasting in the AI Era: Creating Virtuous Production of Data for Local Language LLMs | Session organised by Dr Alison Gillwald. | Bringing African perspectives on local language AI development. |
| Tuesday, February 17 2026 | Reinforcements & Learning: Multistakeholder Convening on AI Governance (Side Event: GNI MAP-AI initiative) | Closed proceedings. | India International Centre | Contextualising and Conceptualising AI Safety | Workshop co-chaired by Pria Chetty, Advisor to the CCG and GNI’s Strategic Multistakeholder Dialogue. | Ensuring African and Global South perspectives are centred in AI safety discussions. |
| Wednesday, February 18 2026 | PAIRS Symposium Parallel Session (Side Event: PAIRS Symposium 2026 India) | Public. Register to join in-person. 09:00 – 17:00 IST | India International Centre | PAIRS Symposium: Democratising AI Resources | Research paper presentation by Liz Orembo and Dr Kola Ijasan. | Sharing findings from the paper “Democratisation for who?” on the need for access to civic data for public empowerment. |
| Friday, February 20 2026 | India AI Impact Summit | Public. 17:30-18:25 IST | Bharat Mandapam | Toward Collective Action: Roundtable on Safe & Trusted AI | Roundtable discussion with Dr Kola Ijasan, facilitated by AI Safety South Africa (AISSA), ILINA, and the Tech Governance Project. | Bridges commitments on AI safety governance, with a particular focus on catastrophic and dual-use risks that remain underexplored in regional policy discussions. |
| Friday, February 20 2026 | India AI Impact Summit | Public. Register to join In-person. 16:30 – 17:25 PM IST | Bharat Mandapam | Launch: Global South Network on AI Safety & Evaluations | Public launch and reception dinner. | Historic launch of global alliance advancing context-aware AI safety. |
Connect with us
Events listed above are exclusively in-person, presenting an opportunity for the Research ICT Africa team to engage with international partners. If you’d like to connect with us during or after the India AI Impact Summit, or at one of the listed side events, contact info@researchictafrica.net to arrange a meeting.
