Emmanuel Lubanzadio, OpenAI’s Africa Lead, is commonly on the highway. In April, he was in Kigali, Rwanda, addressing policymakers and tech leaders on the World AI Summit. Then he was in Morocco, attending the GITEX Africa convention. He has extra such appearances scheduled within the coming weeks, the place he’ll proceed to advocate for African adoption of AI instruments on behalf of OpenAI, the corporate behind ChatGPT.
Earlier than OpenAI, Lubanzadio was a coverage advisor for UNICEF’s Giga initiative, specializing in connectivity and know-how coverage. And earlier than that, he led Twitter’s authorities relations in Africa. I requested Lubanzadio if he’d ever skilled some self-doubt throughout these roles, bridging international corporations to Africa. He tells me that he appears past his doubts. “I take into consideration the accountability, honouring the second, and the folks it could affect.”
A twin id cast in Bonn
Lubanzadio was born to oldsters from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, however grew up in Bonn, a metropolis alongside the Rhine River, steeped in German historical past. “I grew up with a twin id,” he says, “immersed in German tradition, language, and schooling whereas being nurtured by African dad and mom who held on to the values and traditions of the homeland.”
Coming of age within the tumultuous early Nineteen Nineties, the Rwandan Genocide and ongoing conflicts within the Congo closely formed his dad and mom’ conversations, leaving him with a profound sense of Africa’s challenges and aspirations, and a curiosity concerning the continent’s place on the planet.
Discovering the affect of know-how in Obama’s America
In 2008, Lubanzadio moved to the U.S. on a basketball scholarship, to pursue a global relations diploma. On the time, Barack Obama’s presidential marketing campaign used know-how together with social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube to mobilise voters and disseminate political messaging. “That’s after I first found tech coverage,” Lubanzadio says. “I noticed how know-how was leveraged to get political messaging out, and I grew to become very passionate ever since.”
After graduating in 2012, Lubanzadio moved to Washington, D.C., immersing himself within the coronary heart of American policymaking by means of the Congressional Black Caucus Fellowship.. There, he carried out background analysis on the African Progress and Alternative Act (AGOA), a U.S. commerce coverage enacted in 2000 that has since bolstered African exports, significantly in textiles and agriculture, and fueled e-commerce startups in international locations like Nigeria.
“I used to be an observer,” he says, “studying how nations negotiate, how agreements form economies.” The expertise deepened his understanding of Africa’s financial potential and the position of coverage in unlocking it.
Working at Twitter
In 2020, Lubanzadio joined Twitter, main its authorities relations in Africa throughout a transformative interval for the continent’s digital panorama, accelerated by the pandemic. His position was to bridge Twitter’s international ambitions with Africa’s distinctive socio-political realities. One in all his proudest achievements was facilitating Twitter’s enlargement into Africa, culminating within the opening of its first workplace in Ghana in 2021.
“I led the coverage engagement, together with convening a gathering between Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey and the Ghanaian president,” he tells me, his voice tinged with pleasure.
Across the time, Nigeria was dealing with a turbulent socio-political second. Twitter was banned within the nation after the platform deleted tweets by then-President Muhammadu Buhari, which warned of a possible repeat of the Nigerian Civil Conflict amid unrest within the southeast, primarily involving the Igbo folks.
The Nigerian ban was a defining second for Lubanzadio; it underscored the significance of belief and partnership in navigating Africa’s fragmented coverage panorama.
With 54 international locations and numerous regulatory frameworks, tech corporations face completely different challenges from knowledge localisation legal guidelines to cybersecurity issues. In Africa’s fast-evolving tech ecosystem, the place regulatory hurdles and stakeholder scepticism can derail formidable ventures, Lubanzadio champions dialog as a robust software. “It’s about listening to issues and explaining one’s place,” he says. “Dialog all the time solves it.” He emphasises that as a “faraway firm,” stakeholders might not grasp the organisation’s worth proposition, therefore his position at OpenAI.
Working at OpenAI
In early 2025, Lubanzadio joined OpenAI as its Africa lead. OpenAI’s mission to advance synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) for international profit resonated deeply with him. “AI is the subsequent frontier,” he says, “and I would like Africa to be a part of shaping it, not simply utilizing it.”
4 months into his position, travelling throughout Africa, from Kenya to Morocco, Lubanzadio has seen how OpenAI’s partnerships are unlocking AI’s transformative potential for the continent. “Over 500 million folks and companies globally use ChatGPT weekly, and Africa is part of that,” he says.
In healthcare, AI is bettering maternal care in distant areas; in agriculture, it’s boosting crop yields for smallholder farmers who produce 70% of Africa’s meals provide. There are corporations like Jacaranda Well being in Kenya, which makes use of AI-powered SMS providers to assist pregnant girls, and Digital Inexperienced, which delivers AI-generated farming recommendation to 160,000 smallholder farmers throughout Kenya, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.
These initiatives mirror AI’s potential to deal with Africa’s urgent wants. But, challenges persist. Solely about 36% of Africans have web entry, and the excessive value of {hardware}—like Nvidia GPUs, which might value $40,000—has restricted AI adoption.
Lubanzadio emphasises partnerships as the important thing to overcoming these limitations. OpenAI’s collaboration with the AI for World Growth Accelerator is one such partnership. It helps nonprofits utilizing AI to sort out social challenges, offering technical assist and API credit.
He additionally cited the announcement of Africa’s first “AI manufacturing facility” by Cassava Applied sciences and Nvidia in March 2025, simply earlier than the World AI Summit in Kigali, which has been lauded as a turning level for AI growth on the continent. The power, set to deploy Nvidia’s GPU-based supercomputers in South Africa, with enlargement to Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria, addresses the continent’s computing energy deficit. Solely 5% of Africa’s 80,000 AI practitioners presently have entry to ample computational sources.
OpenAI just isn’t instantly concerned within the undertaking. Nevertheless, Lubanzadio describes it as a game-changer. echoing optimistic sentiments from consultants who word that native knowledge centres will cut back latency and prices, enabling African innovators to construct contextually related AI fashions.
Navigating challenges, seizing alternatives
Africa’s tech ecosystem is vibrant but advanced. Infrastructural gaps and coverage fragmentation throughout 54 nations proceed to pose vital hurdles. Digital literacy stays low particularly throughout gender divides: a 2024 ImpactHER survey revealed that 86% of African girls lack primary AI proficiency, with rural girls significantly deprived.
Lubanzadio stays optimistic, highlighting rising momentum. Seven African international locations, together with Kenya and South Africa, have developed nationwide AI methods, and initiatives comparable to Rwanda’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution are fostering innovation. The World AI Summit in Kigali Lubanzadio, attended earlier within the 12 months, underscored Africa’s ambition to guide in moral, inclusive AI adoption. The summit produced an Africa Declaration on AI aimed toward positioning the continent as a big participant within the race, backed by a $60 billion fund to bolster infrastructure and expertise growth. “The conversations have been empowered, real looking, constructive,” Lubanzadio tells me. “AI isn’t a distant know-how—it’s right here, and it’s actual.”
I ask him how OpenAI approaches sourcing and together with African knowledge, a lot of which is offline, to coach fashions with correct context for the continent. As an illustration, facial recognition methods usually wrestle with darker pores and skin tones resulting from biased coaching knowledge. Lubanzadio says this can be a precedence. “Inclusion begins with partnerships,” he explains. OpenAI’s collaborations with organisations like Orange handle the underrepresentation of African languages and cultures in international datasets.
Lubanzadio’s position is demanding, requiring fixed journey and high-stakes negotiations. He shuttles between continents, a contemporary nomad grounded by his dedication to Africa. After I ask how he handles the accountability of his position, he remembers a defining second at UNICEF’s Giga initiative, the place he was confronted with the stark actuality of the digital divide. “I used to be humbled,” he says. “The web formed my life—discovering scholarships, dreaming large. To suppose billions don’t have that chance is surprising.”
After I ask what he thinks the longer term holds for him within the subsequent 5 years, Lubanzadio smiles. “I don’t do five-year plans,” he says. “I comply with a compass of curiosity and objective.”
He tells me that, reflecting on his present perspective, he would advise his youthful self—or any younger African beginning out—to embrace intentionality.
“It’s a marathon, not a dash,” he says. “Know what drives you, the affect you wish to make. With out that grounding, it’s simple to get swept up in others’ expectations.” His path, in any case, defied recommendation to keep away from politics. “Had I listened to others, I wouldn’t be right here,” he says.
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