AIC 2026 Speakers

The Conference will bring together visionary speakers, industry leaders, and innovators shaping Africa’s future. This year’s event will feature thought-provoking keynotes, multidisciplinary panels, and dynamic discussions aimed at driving economic independence, sustainability, and global competitiveness. Speakers will have the platform to share groundbreaking insights, inspire action, and contribute to transformative change across the continent.

Meet Our Speakers

Anthony Mirie
Dr.Obianuju Okafor
Ari Jacobovits
Chris Folayan
Dr. Idah Z. Pswarayi-Riddihough
Dr. Patrick Njoroge
Elizabeth Laiza Kalu
Funke Opeke

More Inspiring Speakers

Gift Ntuli
Gift Ntuli is the timbuktoo UniPods Lead at the United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Africa. In this role, he leads the design and rollout of Africa’s first pan-African network of university-based research and development makerspaces, aimed at strengthening innovation pipelines and accelerating the commercialization of locally developed solutions. He previously served as Head of Experimentation in UNDP’s Accelerator Labs, where he worked on testing and scaling development innovations across diverse country contexts. Prior to joining UNDP, he worked in California in geophysical data acquisition, processing, and monitoring for the energy industry.
Gregory Ugwi
Gregory Ugwi is the co-founder & CEO of Wefranch and a general partner at Muck Capital. Prior to Wefranch, he built Thinknum Alternative Data. Greg graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and worked at Goldman Sachs as a strat in the sales and trading department.
Uche Ralph-Opara
Dr. Uche Ralph-Opara is a physician and global health leader serving as Chief Health Officer at Project HOPE, where she leads the Global Health Technical Unit and oversees a multi-country portfolio spanning infectious diseases, maternal, newborn and child health, mental health and psychosocial support, health security, and non-communicable diseases. Her work centers on strengthening health systems and building resilient, well-supported frontline health workforces across low-resource and crisis-affected settings.
Lofred Madzou
Lofred Madzou is the Co-Founder and Director of Partnerships at the African Olympiad Academy (AOA), a world-class institution dedicated to training Africa’s premier math and science talent. Through AOA, he is cultivating a new generation of elite African mathematicians, scientists, and AI entrepreneurs. A strategic leader in the tech ecosystem, Lofred focuses on building the high-level partnerships necessary to scale STEM excellence across the continent.
Precious Onyeukwu
Precious Onyeukwu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nketa Afrika, an AI-powered EdTech platform designed to bridge the linguistic gap between the African diaspora and the continent. Precious is redefining tech leadership by championing Cultural Intelligence (CQ) as a critical business skill, empowering the next generation of African builders.
Prof. Ericmoore Jossou
Assistant Professor at MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Ericmoore Jossou focuses on designing next-generation nuclear fuels while building a direct pipeline for African talent. Through initiatives like the MIT MISTI-Africa grant, he facilitates research exchanges that empower Ghanaian scientists to add value to indigenous materials using world-class facilities.
Speaker

Adeola Alli

Adeola Alli is the CEO and Founder of OneHealth, a digital pharmacy and healthcare platform transforming access to medicines and care for patients, providers, and payers across Africa. Through a verified network of over 2,000 pharmacies, OneHealth delivers pharmacare to the last mile—reaching all 36 states in Nigeria and impacting over 1 million lives to date. A licensed pharmacist in both the United Kingdom and the United States, Adeola’s journey began with a deeply personal challenge—struggling to find basic asthma medication for her child in Nigeria. That moment sparked a mission to bridge the gap in access to essential medicines and build a more connected, transparent, and resilient healthcare system. Backed by more than 15 years of pharmaceutical and business experience, Adeola has held clinical roles at Well Pharmacy in the UK and at Concord Pharmacy and CVS Health in the US. She holds a Master of Pharmacy from the University of Manchester, an MBA from IE Business School, and completed Product Management studies at Northwestern University—blending deep technical and operational expertise with a human-centered approach to healthcare. Under her leadership, OneHealth has been recognized by global organizations such as Google for Startups, where she was a recipient of the Black Founders Fund, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which selected OneHealth for its Investing in Innovation (i3) initiative to scale healthcare innovation across Africa amongst others. Adeola is a mother of three and a firm believer that empathy is not just a personal value—it’s a blueprint for building systems that work for everyone.

Speaker

Bunmi Adekore

works as an investor in clean technology solutions and enterprises. He presently leads investing at DawnBox - a fund investing in innovative industrial solutions. He was a Partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures where he led investments in innovative companies across manufacturing, mobility, energy and emerging markets. He has been a serial entrepreneur for more than a decade, focusing on hardware manufacturing enterprises in clean technology, semiconductor engineering and biotechnology. Bunmi has a technical background in Materials Science and Engineering from North Carolina State University where he received a bachelor’s and doctorate degree.

Speaker

DANIEL E. AGBIBOA

DANIEL E. AGBIBOA is John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University. He is also a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar under the Humanity’s Urban Future program. Daniel E. Agbiboa’s research examines how insurgency, urban crisis, and state power reorganize everyday life in West Africa. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, he studies the governance of proximity, the infrastructures of survival, and the afterlives of violence in cities and insurgent territories alike. He is the author of People as Protection (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2026); Urban Lifelines (Polity Press, 2026, with Ash Amin, Abdoumaliq Simone, et al.) They Eat Our Sweat (Oxford University Press, 2022); and Mobility, Mobilization, and Counter/Insurgency (University of Michigan Press, 2022), which received the ISA’s Lee Ann Fuji Best Book Award and the ISA Peace Section Best Book Award. Agbiboa serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) and is a trustee of the IJURR Foundation. His scholarship has been recognized with the Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award and APSA’s Clarence Stone Scholar Award for outstanding contributions to urban politics. His work has appeared in African Affairs, Journal of Modern African Studies, African Studies Review, Public Culture, Urban Studies, IJURR, and other leading journals.

Speaker

Daniel Ajayi

Daniel Ajayi, MIT Class of 2025, is the co-founder and CTO of Sorce, a SF-based, YC-backed startup where users apply to jobs by swiping right. With over 700k installations and more than 40 million swipes, Sorce is the fastest-growing consumer job platform in its category. He leads the engineering and automation systems behind Sorce, focused on increasing liquidity in the labor market by reducing friction between candidates and employers. At MIT, Daniel served as Academic & Professional Chair of the MIT African Students Association, where he helped students navigate recruiting and land roles in industry.

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Daniel Meke

Head of Enterprise AI Strategy and Power Pillar Lead, AMD Former Global Operations Leader, Chevron Daniel Meke is a mechanical engineer and global operations strategist specializing in high-stakes systems discipline and large-scale technical infrastructure. He currently serves as the Lead for the Power Pillar at AMD one of the five foundational pillars driving the company’s product design and global competitiveness where he also oversees Enterprise AI Strategy. In this capacity, Mr. Meke applies rigorous engineering productivity standards and systems-level architecture to the semiconductor industry, strengthening AMD’s long-term technical roadmap. Prior to joining AMD, Mr. Meke spent over a decade at Chevron leading major capital projects and offshore operations across Africa, Central Asia, and Europe. Navigating some of the world’s most safety-critical and complex environments, he was instrumental in delivering multi-billion-dollar infrastructure programs and managing cross-functional teams of more than 2,000 personnel. His tenure at Chevron was marked by his ability to drive large-scale operational turnarounds, successfully reducing costs and unlocking over $1 billion in capital value through enhanced reliability and capital discipline. Mr. Meke’s expertise sits at the intersection of megaproject execution and real-time operations leadership. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and continues to focus on the convergence of energy systems and advanced computing to drive economic resilience.

Speaker

Hatim LAHMIYM

Hatim LAHMIYM is the Managing Director of OCP Kenya, a subsidiary OCP Africa. In this role, he oversees the company's operations in Kenya and the sub-region, focusing on enhancing agricultural productivity through the provision of quality fertilizers and enhanced services to smallholder farmers. Hatim is committed to advancing agricultural practices across Africa, aligning with OCP Nutricrops’s mission to support sustainable agriculture and food security on the continent. Prior to this, he was Deputy Managing Director of OCP Kenya & leading the Human Capital department for Africa managing 12 subsidiaries across the continent.  Before joining OCP, Hatim specialized in executive search consultancy business. He acquired extensive experience in identifying and attracting C-level executives for multinational companies operating in Africa.  Hatim holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from NEOMA Business School in France, an Executive master’s degree in Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of Emerging Africa from HEC Paris and an Executive Leadership certificate from Harvard Business School in Boston.

Speaker

Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson

Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson is a healthcare entrepreneur, public health policy expert, and MIT Sloan Fellow (SFMBA ’26). She is the Founder and CEO of Healthtracka, a venture-backed health technology company improving access to early diagnosis through at-home testing, digital tools, and data-driven care models. Ife is also the Convener of the Banking on Women’s Health Conference, a cross-sector platform advancing investment, research, and innovation in women’s health. Through this initiative, she brings together policymakers, clinicians, investors, and founders to drive structural change in how women’s health is funded and delivered in low- and middle-income communities. With a background in biochemistry and over 15 years of experience spanning product innovation, marketing, and strategy, Ife operates at the intersection of health, technology, and capital. She has been recognized internationally for her leadership and impact, including as a Top 3 Bold Women Award winner by Veuve Clicquot and a Bayer Women Empowerment Award recipient. At MIT, she is focused on building scalable, data-driven ventures at the frontier of consumer health intelligence, clinical research, and emerging markets investing.

Speaker

Prof. Tavneet Surii

Tavneet Suri is the Louis E. Seley Professor of Applied Economics and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her expertise is in the role of technology in Sub-Saharan Africa. Tavneet is an editor at the Review of Economics and Statistics; Co-Chair of the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative at J-PAL; Co-Chair of the Digital Identification and Finance Initiative at J-PAL Africa; a member of the Executive Committee at J-PAL; and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She holds a BA in economics from Cambridge University, UK, and an MA in International and Development Economics (IDE) and a PhD in economics, both from Yale University

Speaker

Queen Martins

Growth Manager, Taptap Send Queen Martins is a fintech growth leader specializing in market expansion and capital movement across Africa. As a Growth Manager at TapTap Send, she manages the strategic scaling of one of the world’s most active remittance corridors, Nigeria, as well as the company’s expansion into East Africa. Her work is focused on making cross-border payments faster, cheaper, and more accessible for the African diaspora. Before transitioning into fintech growth, Queen spent years at the intersection of African venture capital and media. She served as a producer for Lions’ Den (the Nigerian adaptation of Shark Tank), where she sat at the crossroads of entrepreneurship and investment, facilitating the flow of capital to early-stage founders. She also led commercial partnerships for Big Brother Nigeria, managing multi-million dollar sponsorships for the continent’s most influential cultural export. A Columbia Business School MBA and host of the Living Boldly podcast, Queen is dedicated to building financial systems that are as human-centered as they are high-growth. She is a leading voice on how Africa can leverage its unique data and cultural capital to build sovereign, scalable financial infrastructure.

Speaker

Solomon Adenle

Solomon Adenle is a power infrastructure and electrification leader working at the intersection of energy, technology, and strategic innovation. He serves as Principal Manager at bp, leading Power Infrastructure Development for bpx energy, bp’s US onshore oil and gas business, where he oversees electrification strategy and power infrastructure development, managing the planning and execution of initiatives that enhance reliability, operational efficiency, and the transition toward lower-carbon energy systems. His work focuses on integrating advanced engineering solutions with evolving energy demands, including digitalization, electrification, and emerging power technologies shaping the future of industrial energy systems. Beyond his industry role, Solomon contributes to shaping the next generation of engineering leadership as an External Advisory Board Member for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in Texas, he brings a multidisciplinary perspective that bridges deep technical expertise with strategic business leadership. He is currently pursuing an Executive MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where his interests center on energy innovation, global infrastructure development, and the evolving role of technology in accelerating sustainable growth across emerging and developed markets.

Speaker

Tolu Alabi

Tolu is passionate about how technology can simplify and elevate the way people experience the world. Driven by this, she is building Cleva, a banking platform that enables non-US residents to get paid in USD and manage their finances. Before founding Cleva, Tolu was a Product Manager at Stripe and Amazon. She earned her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and previously studied Computer Science and Mathematics, starting her career as a software developer.

Speaker

Yassine LAGHZIOUI

Yassine Laghzioui is the CEO of UM6P Ventures, the Corporate Venture Capital arm of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), and Chief Entrepreneurship & Venturing Officer at UM6P. He is also the Founder and CEO of Phova Technology, a Moroccan deep-tech machinery company specialized in industrial pumps and valves. Through The FORGE, UM6P’s flagship venture-building program, he mentors founders from across Africa to build globally scalable startups. A graduate of Stanford GSB, Yassine works at the intersection of engineering, venture capital, and entrepreneurship. His focus: turning bold ideas into enduring ventures that combine human drive, technology, and long-term impact.

Speaker

Arun Shanmuganathan

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Nikhil Pereira